Planning For The Evential Tomorrow

The Importance of Preplanning
It is important that family members discuss future funeral arrangements. Preplanning can provide opportunities for everyone to discuss personal preferences, feelings, and desires. In the event of death, the family will be comforted by knowing that they are carrying out their loved one's wishes. This is especially significant if someone desires a simple, inexpensive funeral or no funeral at all. In the grief-laden period following the death of a loved one, many emotions are experienced and consumers can easily over-extend themselves financially on funeral arrangements. If they know the deceased definitely wanted a simple funeral then the family will not feel guilty about spending less. Thus, a choice for simplicity will not be mistaken for a lack of respect.

Taking time to collect information on varying costs and calmly choosing funeral arrangements ahead of time can protect the family from any possible sales pressure, intended or not, at the time of extreme emotional crisis. In this way, you can carefully choose the specific items you want and need and can compare prices offered by one or more funeral providers. By considering all the options available now, the family eliminates the possibility of making hasty, often expensive, decisions later.

Preplanning can place the funeral provider and the funeral consumer on a more equal footing. The inexperienced consumer who makes arrangements at the time of need can be extremely vulnerable. Prior knowledge helps the consumer decline certain services and purchase only what is wanted. The consumer can decide the type and cost of the funeral or other disposition rather than someone else.

If death occurs unexpectedly, it is a good idea to have a non-family member or clergy accompany the family when making funeral arrangements to provide emotional support and to help the family make decisions more clearly.

What Are Your Choices?
Funerals can be simple or lavish. Many Americans are beginning to question the value or need of a traditional funeral. Actually, the modern American funeral only dates back to the Civil War, when a Brooklyn doctor invented the idea of embalming bodies of soldiers so that they could be shipped home. Embalming is essential to the modern or traditional funeral. A traditional funeral generally includes the following costs: moving the body to the funeral home, using the funeral home facilities, embalming, providing cosmetology and restoration, dressing the body, purchasing the coffin, using the hearse, arranging for pallbearers, caring for flowers, and providing guest register and acknowledgment cards. It also includes professional service fees, burial and transit permit, newspaper death notices, extension of credit, and completion of filing of the death certificate.

All of the above goods and services have generally been included in a package-priced traditional funeral. The following costs are usually additional depending on the type of service selected: clergy's honorarium, music, extra limousines, flowers, burial clothes, cremation service charges, urn, marker or monument, crypt, cemetery charges for opening and closing grave, burial plot, long-distance telephone calls or telegrams, distance and other additional transportation items, cemetery perpetual-care charges, burial vault or grave liner, and taxes. Many of these items and services may be handled by and billed to the funeral provider, becoming cash-advance items that are then reimbursed by the family. Consumers should know that they may decline or even provide many of these services themselves.

Direct Disposition
Consumers may wish to choose direct disposition because they do not wish to delay interment, and/or it is less expensive than a traditional funeral. With direct disposition, the body is usually taken from the place of death directly to the cemetery. A graveside service may be conducted at a later time, if desired. The cost of direct disposition is related to the degree to which funeral goods and services are used. The expenses of a direct disposition service primarily involve removal of the body from the place of death, shelter of the body prior to disposition, a suitable container to transfer the body, transportation to the cemetery, and filing of the necessary legal documents.

Cremation
Generally less expensive than either traditional funeral or direct disposition, cremation is a process in which the body is placed in an inexpensive container and taken to the crematory where it is placed in a retort, exposed to intense heat, and reduced to ashes. The ashes (or cremains) may then be stored in an urn or other receptacle or disposed of by the survivors.

State and local laws should be checked before disposing of the ashes. Some states and localities have regulations restricting the process of scattering cremated remains over land or water. The costs may include the cremation itself, transportation of the body and cremated remains, an urn or other container for the ashes, burial in a niche in a columbarium (a special building designed to hold cremation urns) or in a burial plot, a memorialization plaque, and scattering of the ashes (unless done personally). In addition, a suitable container such as cardboard, knock-down-wood, pressboard, fiberboard, or composition container is usually all that is required by law. Thus, such alternative suitable containers eliminate the need to purchase a casket.

Direct cremation and scattering of the ashes would probably be the least expensive alternative if cremation is the chosen method of disposition.

Memorial Service
Usually a memorial service is held after a direct cremation or burial. This option may be less expensive than a traditional funeral depending on the extent to which the funeral home becomes involved. The service may be similar to a traditional funeral ser-vice or may be modified to reflect uniquely personal values and/or traditions.

There may be an extra charge for use of the chapel on the crematory premises to hold a memorial service and for any goods or ser-vices provided by the funeral home.

Do-It-Yourself
This alternative is possible in some localities, but practically impossible in others. In some states, the law stipulates that only licensed undertakers can transport bodies from one place to another. Also, most states have fairly stringent burial site restrictions. If consumers wish to choose this alternative, it is important that they plan carefully in advance, and check the pertinent laws in their locality. Crematories and cemeteries should also be questioned about their practices.

If there is a memorial society in the area, it may be knowledgeable about legal considerations. The State Board of Undertakers and Embalmers can also provide information about state rules and regulations, as can the Office of the Attorney General.

Body/Organ Donation
Body donation is considered by many to be a valuable service to medical research, as well as a less expensive method of disposition. Consumers should investigate this option carefully beforehand, and alternative arrangements should be made in case the body is not accepted at the time of death.

In the case of organ donation, the donee institution may return the body to the survivors for disposition following removal of the donated organ(s). The family also may be required to pay transportation costs to the donee medical institution.

Such a donation can be made legally binding on the survivors by properly completing a wallet-sized Uniform Donor Card. However, some medical schools and physicians will not accept bodies or organs unless the consent of the nearest of kin is also given. Many states now have donor forms on the back of drivers' licenses, which should be used in addition to the wallet card. A free Uniform Donor Card can be ordered from Continental Association of Funeral Memorial Societies, Inc., 2001 S Street, N.W., Suite 530, Washington, D.C. 20009; (202) 745-0634.

Memorial Societies
There are over 200 memorial societies throughout the United States and Canada. Volunteer-run, these nonprofit organizations are advocates of preplanning and freedom of choice in funeral arrangements. Memorial societies generally do not provide merchandise or funeral services directly; rather they seek contracts or arrangements with cooperating funeral providers to take care of the needs of their membership.

Membership in a memorial society is obtained by paying a one-time membership fee of usually between $15 and $25. If a member dies while away from his/her society's area, the memorial society at or close to the place of death can provide assistance. Membership may be transferred at little or no cost if a member moves.

Consumers should not confuse profit-making businesses with memorial societies since many businesses use the word "memorial" or "society" in their names. Authentic nonprofit societies do not normally sell services or merchandise directly, or charge high membership fees. Most belong to the Continental Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies (see address under Body/Organ donation) or the Memorial Society Association of Canada.

Prepayment
Prearrangement does not necessarily have to be accompanied by prepayment of funeral goods and services. The following is a brief outline of the potential arguments for and against prepayment.

Pro:

• Allows for an increasing feeling of security that prearrangements will be carried out because they have already been paid for.

• Provides peace of mind to those who have no reliable survivor, relative, or other person to handle funeral arrangements.

• Protects survivors from making uncomfortable or irrational decisions under the stress of bereavement.

• Allows for comparison shopping among competing funeral providers.

• Reduces the risk that survivors will have heavy funeral expenses at the time of need.

Con:

• If the consumer dies before completing payments on a pre-need plan and does not have credit life insurance, the agreement may not be honored unless survivors pay the amount outstanding.

• There is no guarantee that the seller of today's services will be in business at the time of need.

• If consumers move, they may not be able to shift their arrangements to another location or receive a refund.

• In many states, money deposited in a pre-need plan receives little or no accrued interest because such interest may be withdrawn annually by the seller to cover administration costs.

• In some states, money paid does not have to be placed in trust, in which case the recipient of the funds may be free to spend them and the consumer runs the risk of having nothing at the time of death.

• If payment is made in installments and not paid when due, there may be penalties assessed. If payments are stopped altogether, any refund may be substantially less than the amount paid into the plan.

• Survivors may not even be aware the funeral expenses have been pre-paid.

The advantage of a "Totten" trust is that the funds stay in control of the depositor and can be withdrawn in an emergency or transferred if the consumer should move to a new area. It is revocable during the depositor's lifetime, but, in most states, becomes irrevocable at the time of death. The disadvantage of such an arrangement is that, as with any other savings account, the depositor may be tempted to use the funds for other purposes.

Burial Insurance
Like a special savings account, a standard life insurance (or burial insurance) policy can be taken out to cover anticipated funeral expenses. Upon death, the policy can provide the funds needed to cover funeral expenses.

Other Considerations
In general, prepayment of funerals should be considered only if the funds are adequately safeguarded (placed in trust), if the seller has a sound reputation, if the consumers are certain that they will want to use services of a particular funeral home, and if the price is guaranteed. Also, the consumer should consult an attorney before signing any agreement.