Watching your loved ones struggle with financial burdens is a frustrating experience, and we believe you don’t want the same to happen either. Purchasing final expense insurance now will keep family members from the stress of arranging a funeral after you leave. In this article, you’ll get detailed information on how much a particular service costs when buying insurance.
What is final expense insurance for?
These are insurance policies designed with the goal of helping people plan ahead for their funeral ceremony and protect their loved ones from additional financial burden. This means that if you’ve purchased senior final expense life insurance, you won’t have to worry about funeral arrangements and expenses after your parents’ death and you’ll be able to grieve in peace and solitude. Your nearest or preferred funeral home will arrange the funeral without any hassle and the insurance provider will cover all costs. However, in order to obtain coverage, you must notify the insurance provider of an insured’s death as soon as possible so that they can contact the preferred funeral home and arrangements can be made in time.
There are also some life insurance plans that take care of funeral costs, but not everyone can afford life insurance just to cover funeral costs. Also, there are people who do not qualify for a life insurance plan due to their specific medical conditions. In this scenario, funeral expense plans have an advantage over life insurance. You do not need to take any medical exam to prove your insurability and anyone can get insurance for themselves. Even if you have someone in the family who is terminally ill, you can easily get a plan for them, without being questioned about it.
How is the cost of insurance calculated?
There are numerous things that decide whether the cost of a funeral will be too low or too high, and the same goes for the cost of an insurance plan. You can contact insurance experts or representatives to get an idea of how insurance costs are calculated and which plan will be best for you. But before you do, we suggest you get multiple final expense insurance quotes from online insurance portals. Once you have the quotes, you will have an idea of the average costs of an insurance plan. Now, you can shortlist the top 3 or 5 insurance plans and talk to representatives of those insurance companies. They’ll ask about your funeral preferences and tell you how much a particular service costs and how you can eliminate services you don’t need. For your convenience, we have provided an estimate of some of the most common services and their costs below:
Professional services
These are basic services that you will have to pay for each time you organize a funeral. Under these, you may be required to pay around $600 for basic services provided by the funeral home staff. The embalming service costs around $700 and you may have to pay another $400 for other preparation services.
Facilities and Personnel Services
Funeral homes provide cemetery and graveside services and host a wake or wake ceremony for friends, family, and loved ones of the deceased. With these services, you may need to pay $900 for a viewing or wake ceremony and you would have to pay around $600.
Transport services
They transport the remains to the funeral home via a regular hearse and you would have to pay about $200 for transportation and $250 for the hearse. If you decide to transport the remains in a limousine, it would cost you an additional $200 or so.
Goods
Under this category, funeral homes provide the casket or cremation urn for the deceased. If the deceased wished to be cremated then the cremation urn will be provided, otherwise a casket for about $3500. Also, they provide burial or urn vaulting for $2500 and for the memorial headstone service you will have to pay other $1000.
Other expenses
These include some extra services like flower arrangements, burial clothes, food, airfare and accommodation for visitors and other optional services that can add another $1000 for the same.