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I meant to ask about this awhile ago. My parents wanted to make sure there was no out of pocket expenses to bury them. They picked what they wanted and then bought a small life insurance policy through the funeral home's person as a condition of the funeral home holding the price.
It worked out like this:
Over the next 3 years, payments are made on the policy and then there are no more payments. In total, the payments were about $12K for a payout of $10K. There are limited benefits if the plan is not paid in full. Though when we knew time was close we were assured this was not the case.
I can understand why a funeral home would want a guaranteed payment (i.e. named beneficiary on the insurance policy) and avoidance of people who die with bills, but there must be a better plan for this.
The $10K was held then of the prices at the time for what was ordered. The total of what was ordered was $9K at the time.
As it turns out, Dad passed during year 2, so the funeral director wanted to charge the current rate and negate it by the payout. I was able to convince him that this was bought in order to lock in costs, so while the proceeds were not as expected, the difference should only be the agreed upon cost less the proceeds. I only had to threaten a little bit...not the traditional bloody pulp style but when his guy didn't show I needed to see his license to sell insurance and securities, and questioned how many checks an investigation would yield showing the differences returned to the estates in question.
So I guess the question is, my parents seemed to be magnets for picking up shoddy advice. What would be the right way to do this?
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,724 posts, read 58,067,115 times
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Consider the options... join https://funerals.coop/ (or affiliates)_ , (or do your community a favor and form your own .coop) or use an alternative funeral service (<$1000 for basic (Churches / venues can be free) or... $3000 full meal deal !! (Dinner / facility / hired music / hearse / commercial grave digger and vault...)
Or... 'direct burial'
$12k will buy you a used Backhoe... bury your friends and neighbors for free!. (We share a neighborhood backhoe)
I rented a backhoe for <$200 when I had to bury someone 2000 miles away (too far to take my backhoe).
Got a FREE transit permit to haul the corpse across (many) state lines (don't try this in Nebraska).
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
13,074 posts, read 7,515,583 times
Reputation: 9798
I bought a prepaid policy for pickup and cremation. It was a whole life policy on my FIL (2008) and on my mother (2012). I forgot the premium amount (couple of thousand ?) and insurance amount (2-3K insurance?). Both policies were purchased a couple of years before their passing.
We used a prepaid cremation for MIL(2016) and BIL (2016). We obtained plan just a couple of weeks before MIL passing, and a couple of months before BIL passing.
All policy/plans did not have health or underwriting questions.
My husband’s life insurance from his last employer that he retired from will give him at least $25K for life insurance if he dies for burial purpose. It’s free for retiree at 65 and older.
I meant to ask about this awhile ago. My parents wanted to make sure there was no out of pocket expenses to bury them. They picked what they wanted and then bought a small life insurance policy through the funeral home's person as a condition of the funeral home holding the price.
It worked out like this:
Over the next 3 years, payments are made on the policy and then there are no more payments. In total, the payments were about $12K for a payout of $10K. There are limited benefits if the plan is not paid in full. Though when we knew time was close we were assured this was not the case.
I can understand why a funeral home would want a guaranteed payment (i.e. named beneficiary on the insurance policy) and avoidance of people who die with bills, but there must be a better plan for this.
The $10K was held then of the prices at the time for what was ordered. The total of what was ordered was $9K at the time.
As it turns out, Dad passed during year 2, so the funeral director wanted to charge the current rate and negate it by the payout. I was able to convince him that this was bought in order to lock in costs, so while the proceeds were not as expected, the difference should only be the agreed upon cost less the proceeds. I only had to threaten a little bit...not the traditional bloody pulp style but when his guy didn't show I needed to see his license to sell insurance and securities, and questioned how many checks an investigation would yield showing the differences returned to the estates in question.
So I guess the question is, my parents seemed to be magnets for picking up shoddy advice. What would be the right way to do this?
Sounds like a fantastic deal. Everyone should be jumping on this bandwagon.
After DH died (yes, AFTER he died) I was still getting offers for Guaranteed Issue Life Insurance from AAA ("you cannot be turned down!"). It was for small amounts that would pay for burial. The catch was that if you died within the first two years they just refunded the premiums you paid, with some interest. Probably not a bad deal for that age group and with no underwriting.
Fortunately, DH just wanted to be cremated, which ran about $1,000.
Sounds like a fantastic deal. Everyone should be jumping on this bandwagon.
Yeah, these guys were pretty big d-bags. Mom is not great with finances and they honed in like wolves. When alone with him I explained that what I thought of their deal was irrelevant, so long as they honored their deal, but it sounded like they were going for even more. I explained that would be a very bad mistake, and it would come across as predatory. Then a lot of opinions on the deal were going to be formed and matter a lot more. I promised only that between him and his partner, they'd reached their profit maximum on this transaction.
My brother paid on a $6000 life insurance policy for 14 years. In the last 9 months of his life was in and out of the hospital and nursing home. During this time he missed a few payments. He resisted any effort to help him manage his affairs, or any suggestions to make it easier, so nobody knew. We found a money order stub for a payment that was made after the day, we're told, the policy, was canceled. They accepted the payment but refuse to pay the benefit. They won't ever reveal who was the beneficiary.
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