According to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report, 2016, the average cost of a basic funeral has increased to £3,897 which is more than twice as much as it was when SunLife first started tracking funeral prices in 2004. Add in the rising cost of things like probate, headstones and flowers and the overall cost of dying has risen by 8.3% to £8,802 in the past year.
With the cost of dying rising much faster than the cost of living, it makes sense to fund your funeral in advance.
It is possible to simply save money for your funeral expenses using a regular savings account or an ISA. However, with continuing low interest rates, there's no guarantee that any form of regular saving can keep pace with the rising costs of funerals. In fact, with the price increases SunLife has reported, there's a real risk of a shortfall.
As the UK's leading funeral plan provider, Golden Charter offers a range of ways to guarantee that essential funeral expenses are covered.
- We offer a choice of plans across a range of budgets
- A variety of payment options are available
- We fix the cost of your funeral director's services at current prices
- Any money paid in advance is held securely in an independent Trust or backed by a regulated insurance provider.
Pre-paying your funeral plan
Any of Golden Charter's four funeral plans can be paid in advance with a single one-off payment. One of the clear benefits of the single-payment plan is that, having pre-paid the full value of the plan, you are immediately covered. Customers who wish to spread the cost but still want to make sure their funeral is provided for quickly, can pay in 12 monthly instalments at no additional cost.
For customers than may not wish to pay by lump sum or over a year of monthly instalments, we also offer a low cost instalment plan. Plans are paid for over an extended period of time - normally over two to four years, but available up to 30 years.
With our instalment plans, once you have made 12 months' continuous payments, it is possible to take a payment break and resume them at any time. Your funeral director's costs are not covered until the final payment has been paid, but money paid in can be used toward the cost of a funeral should you die before the final payment is made.
All payments are held in the Golden Charter Trust where the money is invested with the objective of meeting rising costs. The money in the Trust is ring-fenced, with the funeral director becoming the beneficiary of the plan funds, able to claim these and any relevant growth once a funeral has been carried out.
We also offer the option to pay by fixed monthly payments. In this insurance backed option no deposit is required, you are covered after two years and you pay a fixed monthly amount until death or aged 90.
However you decide to pay for your funeral plan, with a network of over 3,000 funeral directors across the country, paying for your funeral in advance means you can also arrange your funeral ahead of time. So as well as not having to worry about how to pay for your funeral director's costs, your family will know which funeral director you have chosen and any special requests you have made, making thing easier for them at a difficult time.
Once your family presents the certificate of entitlement the funeral director will perform the funeral and invoice Golden Charter for the amount of the plan plus any growth, where this applies. Your family can start to arrange the funeral as soon as they are ready and payment will be sent to the funeral director within five working days of conducting the funeral.
Arranging a funeral plan with Golden Charter fixes the funeral director's costs included in your plan at today's prices and brings you and your family peace of mind. For more information, click here, or call 0808 169 4534.
