While not everyone likes to plan ahead and discuss those final decisions for a loved one, pre-planning not only provides you with a peace of mind but alleviates some of the stress on family members. Al McGuire, with McGuire and Davies Funeral Home and Crematory, explains the two avenues when it comes to pre-funding a funeral:
“When pre-funding funerals, there are two avenues; you can go with a general contract where you pick everything out, you pay for it, but there is no guarantee. The other option is a guaranteed contract, where you pay for it in today’s dollars, down the road it is paid for. We at the funeral homes, we guarantee our contracts. So, our thought is that if a family is going to pay for it once, that is all they are going to pay for it; they are not going to pay for it twice because it was short. We will put it into an insurance-based product that gains interest to offset the rising costs. If the policy is short, that is our problem because we told the family that is guaranteed. In a general contract, that would not be the case. They would have to come up with the additional funds,” states McGuire.
“If you just go out and get a general life insurance policy, there is no funeral home standing behind that. You are going to get charged what the current costs are and if it is short, you are going to have to make up the difference. Where, if you go with a funeral home, where they guarantee the contract, then it is good to go from day one,” McGuire adds.
Having the Talk of a Lifetime can make a difference in how a loved one’s life story is remembered and honored in a way meaningful to them.
