Life Insurance Proceeds

What are life insurance proceeds?


Life insurance proceeds are the payments from life insurance policies being surrendered to a life insurance company.

Secrets of Funeral

10 facts that funeral directors don't want you to know




Most Americans avoid planning their own funerals and instead leave the decisions to their survivors, loved ones. However making arrangements immediately after a death can be unreasonably expensive because it's at such an emotional time.

"The uninformed consumer is setting themselves up to be exposed to excessive spending on items and services that they don't need or want," declares an Executive Director from a Vermont-based Funeral Consumers Alliance, a not-for-profit consumer information and advocacy group.

FCA receives calls from angry and confused consumer’s everyday.

"I just spoke with a man who had asked for a very modest service for a loved one," says the director. "He paid $7,000 for funeral services when all that he really wanted should have cost him around $1,500. He was sold embalming, which he didn't need, and the markup on the casket was excessive.

"He stated to me, 'We did everything we could to cut our funeral costs, and this is the best we could do.'

"It's a crying shame," says the director.

Costs add up quickly
According to AARP, funeral and burial arrangement costs can easily reach as much as $10,000. The average cost of a traditional adult funeral in 1999 was $5,020 without any extras. Burial costs can add an extra $1,800 or more. Flowers, obituary notices, burial grave liners or vaults, family limousines, acknowledgement cards -- they all add up to a major expenditure.

"Funeral arrangement services are one of the largest purchases consumers will make, right up with their car and a home," explained a public affairs specialist with the Federal Trade Commission.

It's important to take your time when deciding on a funeral service. Don't let yourself be pressured into purchasing goods or services you don't necessarily need or want, and then end up having to spend many years paying off the funeral.

Become an informed consumer.

Here are a few examples of what some funeral directors would rather you not know.

1. Shopping around for funeral services can literally save you thousands of dollars.
"Consumers need to apply the same level of know-how to funeral purchases as they would to everything else".

Don't assume a funeral will cost the same just about everywhere. It's just not so.

"By federal law, funeral providers must give consumers a current general price list of all goods and services without the consumer having to ask for it".

"As soon as a person tells a funeral director, 'I want to talk about your services,' the consumer must be handed a current written General Price List of all goods (caskets and services) offered by the funeral home and what they cost."

Typically included would be costs for the initial conference, consultations, paperwork and basic overhead. This fee is called a "nondeclinable fee," it is added to the total cost of the funeral. There is a wide variation in pricing of the nondeclinable fee, be cautious.

The current general price list should also include cost of transportation of the body, care of the body (including embalming), and use of the funeral home for viewing, wake, visitation and any funeral or memorial ceremony. Alternative arrangements such as cremation and optional services such as flowers, placing an obituary and obtaining a death certificate should also be listed on the current general price list.

Use the price list and shop among funeral providers to find the most reasonably priced service.

The AARP recommends obtaining price lists by phone or in person from at least three funeral homes before making a selection.

2. Funeral directors are not clergy.
Funeral directors are business people. They are not ministers, but people often treat them as quasi-clergy. "This is a mistake. Consumers tend to trust them implicitly and believe everything they say. Remember, funeral homes are in business to make money."

Check out the funeral home before you arrange funeral services through them.

"You want to be sure you go to somebody who is currently licensed and has a good reputation within the community. Ask for recommendations from your friends or your minister, rabbi or priest. Even go to a funeral and see how professionally they conduct their business.

Call and speak with a funeral director before visiting, suggests a spokesman for the National Funeral Director's Association.

"Usually within a few minutes of talking to a funeral director, you can get a pretty good feel for who they are. You can hear professionalism. Make sure you're comfortable, and if not, call somebody else."

3. Embalming is rarely required when a person will be buried within 24 to 48 hours.
The United States and Canada are probably the only countries in the world that routinely embalm

their deceased. Embalming is not a matter of protecting the public health, as some unscrupulous morticians would have you believe. The Centers for Disease Control has consistently shown that embalming doesn’t serve any public health purpose.

"Refrigeration is almost always a legal alternative," it's just as good if not better than embalming.

Funeral directors routinely decline to have a public viewing without embalming, but it is not a legal requirement except in Minnesota.

Know your rights as a consumer. If the funeral home still insists, ask for a private viewing without embalming.



4. Seeing your loved one prior to burial without the benefit of embalming will not leave you with unresolved grief issues.
"This is a myth". "There are no objective studies that support this. Embalming is an incredibly invasive process -- there's nothing gentle about this procedure. It's strictly a temporary cosmetic and preservative process."

"If more people knew what embalming entailed, they would not choose to do it".

5. Sealed caskets will not preserve a body.
Sealed caskets can literally cost hundreds of dollars more than unsealed caskets. "It actually costs casket manufacturers only about $12.00 additional."

The idea that a burial casket can protect or preserve the body is "absolute rubbish." Sealer vaults likewise offer no advantage except to the income of the cemetery or funeral director.

6. A funeral provider may not refuse or charge you an additional fee to handle a casket you may have purchased elsewhere.
The funeral casket is the single most expensive item in a traditional funeral service. In a 1996 survey, the AARP found the average price of a casket at that time to be $1,658.

Traditionally, burial caskets were sold only by your local funeral homes, but today cemeteries and retailers sell funeral caskets. You can even purchase a caskets online on the Internet. You may also use a family built casket one if you choose. Caskets online are available in many different design styles and prices; they can be made from metal, wood, fiberglass or plastic.

According to the federal "Funeral Rule," it is illegal for a funeral home to charge a "special handling fee" if you wish to bring in your own casket from an outside source.

7. You don't need to spend more than $600 to $900 for a modest casket.
Since a funeral casket is one of the largest expenses of a funeral, reduce your expenses by shopping around.

If a funeral home is charging more than $600 to $900, you can bet there's a 300 to 500 percent markup. A coffin that is listed at $1,295 at the local funeral home might wholesale for $325. That same burial coffin is probably available from a online casket retailer for only $650.

To discourage customers from choosing less expensive caskets, low-end merchandise is often ordered in ugly colors by a funeral home or is stored in an out of the way place. If the price and basic design of a inexpensive casket appeal to you, ask what other colors can be ordered. Usually a funeral home can get a more attractive replacement within hours.

8. You do not have to buy the whole packaged bundle of services.
Many funeral providers offer various so called "packages" of commonly selected goods and services that make up a traditional funeral.

"Consumers have the right to pick and choose which services they want without buying a complete package".

"You can tell the funeral director, 'I just want the first three but not the last two.” In the past there was no way to unbundle these services, and consumers got soaked because they didn't know any different".

9. You can plan and carry out many things on your own to honor your loved one without paying for services from a funeral home.
Having a memorial service within your home, church, a park or the community center is one way to save money. You could even print memorial cards on your home computer, decorate the room with pictures or items suggestive of your loved one, like collectibles, fishing poles or needlepoint, have friends and family tell stories about your loved one.



"It not only saves you some money, it's more personal".

10. Local funeral and memorial societies can help consumers find ethical establishments and even negotiate discounts for their members.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance has over 113 chapters in 46 states around the country. They were once called funeral and memorial societies. These groups are operated by volunteers and usually will have information on local funeral homes as well as price surveys, which can assist the consumer in comparison-shopping for funeral services.

The more active groups have also negotiated discounts with local funeral homes. To find a group in your area, check out this link to the directory of consumer groups across the nation.