Pre planning
Can I prepay my funeral?
Yes. You can prepay a funeral, and a funeral bond can be a useful way to put money aside for it.
A prepaid funeral can take some of the financial and decision-making pressure away from your family later. With a funeral bond, money is set aside specifically for your funeral rather than relying on an insurance policy with ongoing premiums.
If you choose to prepay with Rest, we can talk through what you want your funeral to look like, what you want to pay for now, and what can be left for your family to decide later.
A prepaid funeral is different from simply writing down your wishes. If you are not ready to pay for your funeral, you can still preplan it with us so your family has a clear record of what you want.
Learn more about pre-paid funeral options.
Related
Can I preplan my funeral?
Yes. You can plan your funeral with Rest before you need it.
You do not have to pay for a funeral to make your wishes known. Preplanning can simply mean talking through the choices, recording what matters to you and making sure your family knows where to find that information.
If you do want to put money aside as well, we can talk to you about a funeral bond and the options currently available through Rest.
The important part is that you get to make the decisions while you can, rather than leaving your family to guess later.
Get in touch with Rest to start planning.
Related
My funeral wishes are in my will. Do I need to plan?
Yes. If your funeral wishes are important to you, it is worth making them known separately from your will.
We hear this quite often:
“My will says I want to be cremated.”
Putting your wishes in your will is certainly better than not recording them at all. The problem is that a will is primarily concerned with what happens to your estate after you die, while your funeral arrangements need to be dealt with much sooner.
The timing matters
When someone dies, their funeral usually needs to be arranged within days.
The will, however, forms part of the process of dealing with the person’s estate. It may not be located, read or formally dealt with until after the immediate arrangements have already been made.
By that point, the burial or cremation may have already taken place.
This means that a funeral wish written in your will can be perfectly clear and still arrive too late to be useful.
Tell your family as well
Your will shouldn’t be the only place where your funeral wishes are recorded.
If you want to be cremated, buried, have a particular type of funeral, or have no funeral at all, tell the people who are likely to be involved when you die.
It can be as simple as having a conversation and writing down what you want.
You might want to record things such as:
- Whether you want to be buried or cremated
- Where you would like your farewell to take place
- Whether you want a funeral or memorial service
- Whether you have a particular coffin or casket in mind
- What you would like to happen with your ashes
- Any particular wishes you have about music, flowers or who should be involved
You don’t have to decide every detail.
A will and funeral plan do different jobs
Think of your will as instructions about your estate and a funeral plan as instructions about your farewell.
They can work together, but one shouldn’t replace the other.
When I recently made my own will, I discussed this with my solicitor. We agreed that funeral planning should be kept separate because the people arranging your funeral need access to those wishes when they are making the immediate arrangements, not later as part of administering your estate.
You don’t have to pre-pay
Planning your funeral doesn’t necessarily mean paying for it in advance.
You can simply record your wishes and make sure the people who will need to know about them can find them.
If you do want to remove the financial burden from your family as well, you can consider pre-paying your funeral, including through a funeral bond.
The important thing is that your wishes are known when they are needed.
So, should I put my funeral wishes in my will?
Yes, if you have funeral wishes, there is no harm in recording them in your will.
But don’t stop there.
A will is important.
But when it comes to your funeral, don’t make your family wait for your will to tell them what you wanted.