Don’t Wait Until You Can’t

Although it’s not a subject that any of us want to talk about, a fully funded, advance funeral plan can be a useful part of estate planning-as important as a will or life insurance. Each serves a distinct purpose.

There are several benefits to preplanning your funeral. Such as, making your wishes known to your family, relieving emotional and financial burdens from your family and many say that it creates a piece of mind for the preplanner, knowing that your final arrangements are taken care of.

Although this concept has been around for many years, most people still have questions about how advance funeral planning works and what you can and cannot do. There are several questions about the transferability and safety of the prefunded arrangements that seem to come up over and over.

• What if I move to different area?
• What if the funeral home I prearranged with goes out of business?
• What if I decide I want to use a different funeral home than the one I prearranged with?

These are all valid concerns and I want to assure that the prearranged funeral agreements are set up to help protect the consumer in all three of these circumstances. The most important thing to understand is that when you prefund your funeral arrangements, the money is not held by the funeral home. Your funds are placed with a 3rd party that has been approved by the State of Ohio. A check made out for prefunded funeral planning should never be made out directly to the funeral home, it should be made out to the company, that the funeral home has chosen to hold those funds.

If you move to a different area, the funeral home you prearranged with goes out of business or you simply decide to use a different funeral home than the one you originally preplanned with, you have the freedom to use any funeral home of your choosing and that new funeral home can access those funds directly.

Where you have prearranged, your funeral shouldn’t be a barrier in choosing a funeral home. In the best interest of community service, we’ll honor prearrangements made anywhere. Feel free to call our office with any questions you might have about advance funeral planning.