×
Two Together: Save £100!
Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
Buy now, pay in January
Buy your funeral plan today and pay in January for peace of mind this Christmas. Click here for full T&Cs.
Two Together: Save £100!
Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
Buy now, pay in January
Buy your funeral plan today and pay in January for peace of mind this Christmas. Click here for full T&Cs.
12 minute read
Funerals can be expensive. That’s a fact that many of us realise more quickly than we would like after the death of a loved one. The increasing price of funerals can add a lot of anxiety at a time that is already difficult for most families. It often leaves us wondering how to get help with funeral expenses, or if there is even any help out there. In this article, we will suggest how to get help with funeral expenses, and offer support on connected subjects.
We’d also just like to say that, if you’ve found us here, we recognise that you could be going through a difficult time. Here at Aura, we offer our compassionate funeral services to those looking to organise a direct cremation at short notice, as well as those looking to the future via one of our prepaid funeral plans.
There are a lot of different elements that make up the final price you’ll pay for your funeral, which is why it can sometimes be difficult to work out how much a funeral costs. There are different types of funeral expenses, and various reasons why financial assistance could be needed.
In general, a funeral has certain key expenses that can’t be avoided, and others which cover additional extras that the family can organise on top of the necessities should they see fit. Something like a direct cremation, as provided by Aura, offers people a low-cost, modern alternative to the traditional funeral. It’s a simple, yet dignified approach to funerals which focuses on the cremation process, rather than the typical ceremonial elements of a bigger funeral.
In general, with a funeral, examples of essential fees may include the care of the person who has died in mortuary facilities prior to their funeral; their transportation to the venue of their funeral on the day; the cost of burying or cremating them; and funeral director’s fees. Additional extras would concern things like the cost of catering for a wake, or any kind of customisation to elements like the burial urn or casket. It’s important to ensure you understand what your direct cremation includes before purchase.
Many people aren’t aware of quite how expensive organising a funeral can be, and as such, they may not budget appropriately or start any kind of funeral checklist beforehand. Naturally, the cost of living crisis has had an enormous impact on our collective spending power, as well as increasing the cost of everything, including the cost of dying, in recent years. Indeed, SunLife puts the average cost of a traditional funeral in the UK at £4,141. It’s hardly any wonder that, as pointed out by Legal & General, we have seen a 23% increase between 2018 and 2023 in instances of a public heath funeral, sometimes referred to as a ‘Pauper’s Funeral’ across the country.
It may be possible to receive support from the government, which can allow those who are eligible to claim funeral costs back.
When someone dies, many people turn to the government to help them bear the cost of the funeral. One of the ways people can do that is through the Funeral Expenses Payment. It’s available to the next of kin (or partners of the next of kin) of the person who has died, as long as they are already claiming some kind of benefit from the government. If the funeral expenses have not yet been paid, merely organised, then the government will make a payment directly to the appointed funeral director on behalf of the bereaved party. If on the other hand, funeral or cremation costs have already been paid, then a reimbursement payment will be issued to successful applicants. In the case of the latter, it’s very important to keep hold of receipts and invoices so that you can give proof of payment when asked.
In order to apply, families will need to provide documentation that proves they are already claiming benefits (or have applied to claim benefits); proof of their agreement to proceed with a funeral director, or of funeral expenses having already been paid; and, possibly, proof of the death of the person who has died, such as via a Death Certificate. How far the support payment stretches depends on the type of funeral that is being organised; it’s possible that the amount could cover everything, but it may only partially cover funeral costs.
The government can offer support via another scheme called the Bereavement Support Payment, which may have a similar application process to the Funeral Expenses Payment. There could also be support available from your local council. Devolved governments across the UK may also have capacity to offer their own forms of the Funeral Expenses or Bereavement Support Payments. For example, the Scottish Government offers its equivalent ‘Funeral Support Payment’, which has a similar application process and eligibility criteria, to residents of Scotland. Please note that claimants will need to choose between UK or Scottish government support, as it isn’t possible to receive both.
Beyond different forms of government support, families looking for help with funeral or direct cremation prices can turn to third-parties, or not-for-profit organisations for support.
There are charities out there that can signpost you towards useful resources, and possibly pay some or all of the cost of a funeral. The Quaker Social Action charity can help you to identify funding opportunities that could support you through funeral-related financial difficulty, whether through the government or employer-specific or industry-specific charities.
There are also charities that can help you to deal with grief more effectively. For instance, Sue Ryder offers guidance on things like joining local death cafes, which many people find to be a great way of learning how to talk about death and dying with others who are grieving near them.
Where charity or government support is not available or appropriate for some people, some may find it productive to set up crowdfunding initiatives to help them fund a funeral. Crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe and JustGiving allow you to post a funding request, where you can add details of the life-story of the person who has died, as well as details of their proposed funeral. You can then share the request on social media, for instance when you are announcing a death to friends.
Many people intend for their families to use their estate to pay for the cost of their funeral. However, this can often be more complicated than it seems.
In order to use an estate to cover funeral costs, you will need to embark upon a couple of different administrative processes. For starters, you will likely need the Death Certificate of the person who has died before you will get anywhere, which you can only get when you register a death. When you want to claim under an over-50’s life insurance policy, for instance, you will often be required to submit the Death Certificate as proof of death of the policy holder. In any case, you will certainly need it when you apply for probate (the legal right to execute the estate of the person who has died).
You’ll also need to find the will of the person who has died so that you can get a clearer understanding of how much their estate is worth, and who the named executor is. When someone dies without a will, you can still apply to distribute their estate, but rather than probate, you will apply for something called a “grant of letters of administration”. It’s worth bearing in mind that, in claiming funeral costs from the government, they will first assess whether there is any capacity in the estate of the person who has died to pay some or all of the funeral costs first.
When there is no estate left by the person who has died, then government support may be available in the form of the Funeral Expenses Payment or the Bereavement Support Payment. The local government, as a last resort, is legally obliged to step in and provide a public-health funeral for anyone who has died within its jurisdiction leaving behind nobody willing and able to fund and organise a funeral for them.
There are other ways of paying for funeral costs available, from prepaid funeral plans to loans or payment plans.
If you are unsure of what a funeral plan is, a good way to understand it is to think of it as an agreement between you and a funeral provider. In effect, once you have paid them and specified what kind of funeral you want, they will keep your money aside until the day it is needed, at which point they will use it to pay for your funeral.
If you buy an Aura funeral plan, we will put your money aside in our FSCS-protected, independently managed trust, where it will be safe from the potential impact of inflation and rising funeral costs. You will lock in today’s prices, guaranteeing that your family won’t have a penny extra to pay when the time comes.
Over-50’s life insurance is a form of insurance covering funeral costs, and is another way that people try to provide for their own funeral further down the line. It works through paying premiums every month (which are at a fixed level and cannot increase once they start to be paid) until you die, at which point the policy can payout a lump-sum in cash to the family.
However, there are a number of other considerations to bear in mind. Life insurance providers in some cases could dispute the ‘Cause of Death’ on the Death Certificate, if it has a bearing on the amount that can be paid out, and, if the policy holder misses a premium payment, the whole policy could be void. To be clear, a Life Insurance provider would likely only ever dispute this with good reason. Policy holders can’t get a refund if they want to cancel or move their policy to a different provider, they simply have to stop paying and take out another one. These are just a few of the things to bear in mind if you are inclined towards over-5o’s life insurance as a way of paying for your own funeral.
There are a number of steps you will need to go through in order to apply for financial assistance with funeral expenses from the government.
We hope that this article has helped you feel more familiar with how to get help with funeral expenses. If you need to organise a funeral for a loved one in the here and now, we want you to feel as comfortable and as well informed as can be.
If you’d like Aura’s help with making your funeral arrangements, whether today or as part of a prepaid funeral plan for the future, our Angel team is always ready to take your call. We are the UK’s top-rated ‘Cremation Services’ provider on Trustpilot with 4.9/5 stars. It’s the compassionate and informed approach of our Angels which is central to this recognition.
We are also proud of the fact that we are a family-run company. We were set up by Paul Jameson in 2019, following his confrontation with motor neurone disease and his own mortality. He wanted to pass on the benefits of what he’s learned to everyone in the UK struggling with end-of-life planning, and he still runs the company today alongside his son, Dave (our CEO), and Ben (our COO), a family friend. Every day, we strive to offer nothing less than the service Paul would want for his own family, to everyone in our care.
If you’d like our support with funeral arrangements, or with the paperwork that funeral arranging can generate, please feel free to give us a call. We’re here to help.
