Funeral Insurance
Do You Need Funeral Insurance?
Alright, it doesn’t take a degree in brain surgery to figure out why you would need funeral insurance. There are funerals. There’s insurance. There’s funeral insurance. The average cost of a funeral in America being $4500, and that only looks set to rise in the coming years. That’s four thousand and more good reasons to look into funeral expense insurance. This isn’t for your benefit, of course, but for the benefit of your family and friends – or, anyone else legally responsible to bury you.
Don’t I Already Have A Funeral Insurance?
If you have life insurance, you may already have some funeral insurance. Not all life insurance policies cover funeral expenses. You need to check your policy out and see if there’s a specific clause for funeral insurance and for how much it will pay out. Depending on your life insurance company, you can add a funeral insurance rider, but that will mean raising your premiums.
You only need a rider for $10,000 or even $5,000 of funeral insurance. You’re not an Egyptian pharaoh. Don’t expect your grieving family and friends to pay for anything extravagant. However, you can get policies that will specifically cover your final arrangements – including choice of casket, what clothes you want to be buried in and tombstones. You also get to choose whether you want to be buried or cremated.
Check Funeral Insurance State Laws
You have to pick your funeral insurance very carefully, if you don’t already have it. It’s often called “pre-need insurance” as a gentle euphemism, since “funeral insurance” seems to scare a lot of customers away. Before you even begin comparison shopping, you need to know what the laws are for pre-need insurance in your state. Some states will not allow it.
Some states, such as New Jersey, will require you to pay only to the insurance company and not a funeral home or casket supplier. You can still write into your funeral insurance which funeral home you want to do the honors, but some states think it is safer for the insurance buyer to not pay the funeral home directly beforehand.
Get Funeral Insurance In Writing
There isn’t standardization for funeral insurance, so this is a piece of paper you really need a lawyer or accountant to look at before you sign. You can’t take anything for granted. Everything you want in your funeral or the pre-need insurance must be written down in the policy. It’s also good to ask for a written statement once a year from the insurance company to make sure everything is still okay.
