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.

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.

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.

Tell your family. Tell the person you expect will be involved in arranging your funeral. Keep a separate record of your wishes somewhere they can easily find it.

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.

What is a will?

A will is a legal document that says what you would like to happen to the things you leave behind when you die.

When people hear the word “will”, they often think about money, houses, bank accounts and other property.

Those things are certainly part of it, but a will can be about much more than what happens to your stuff.

It’s not just about money

A will can give you an opportunity to make your wishes known about the people and things that matter to you.

If you have children who are under 18, for example, one of the most important questions to think about is:

Who would look after my children if I wasn’t here?

You can use your will to nominate someone you would like to act as a guardian for your children.

This doesn’t mean that the person you name automatically becomes the legal guardian in every circumstance. Decisions about children are ultimately made according to their best interests. But making your wishes known can be an important part of planning for their future.

You might also want to think about:

Who you would trust to care for your children
How you would like your children to be supported
Who you would trust to manage money or property left to them
What should happen to your home and other possessions
Whether there are particular belongings you want specific people to receive
Who you would like to manage your estate

You don’t have to be old to need a will

One of the biggest misconceptions about wills is that they are something you worry about when you get old.

You don’t need to be old to have things worth protecting.

You might have young children. You might own a home. You might have superannuation, savings, a car, a business, personal possessions or simply people you care deeply about.

Even if you don’t have much money or property, there can still be good reasons to make a will.

If you have children, the question of who you would want to care for them is reason enough to start thinking about it.

What happens if I don’t have a will?

If you die without a valid will, you are said to have died intestate.

Your estate is then distributed according to the intestacy laws that apply to you, rather than according to instructions you have made yourself.

That doesn’t necessarily mean your wishes will be ignored, but it does mean that you haven’t left your own instructions for how your estate should be dealt with.

A will is not a funeral plan

This is something we see quite often.

People tell us:

“It’s all in my will. I want to be cremated.”

A will and a funeral plan serve different purposes.

Your will deals primarily with your estate after you die. Your funeral arrangements need to be known by the people arranging your funeral, often within days of your death.

If you have particular wishes about your funeral, don’t rely on your will being the only place they are recorded.

Tell the people who will need to know.

You can read more about this in My funeral wishes are in my will. Do I need to plan?.

Where do I start?

Making a will doesn’t have to mean making complicated decisions about everything you own.

Start by thinking about the people who matter to you and what you would want for them if you weren’t around.

Then consider your property, finances and possessions, and who you trust to carry out your wishes.

A solicitor can help you understand your options and prepare a will that reflects your circumstances.

And remember: a will isn’t something you make once and forget about forever. As your family, relationships, finances and circumstances change, it is worth reviewing it to make sure it still reflects what you want.

The important thing

A will is about more than who gets your money.

It is about leaving clear instructions for the people you leave behind.

You don’t need to be old, wealthy or own a house to start thinking about what you would want to happen if you died.

Sometimes the most important question isn’t “Who gets my stuff?”

It’s “Who will look after the people I love?”