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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
How to claim funeral costs is something many of us want to know when we are faced with the prospect of organising a funeral for a loved one at short notice. If we are struggling to cope with the death of a parent, or if we are dealing with the unexpected death of a loved one, worrying about financial matters as well can make things even more difficult. In this article we are going to explain to you how to claim funeral costs, and to point you towards resources you might find useful, if you are worrying about funeral costs.
We’d also just like to say, whatever has brought you to this page, we are here for you and we recognise the difficulty you might be in. Aura’s funeral services are available to all those who need them, whether they are looking for a prepaid funeral plan or to arrange a direct cremation at short notice. Our wonderful team of Aura Angels are here to lead you by the hand through the difficulty of funeral arranging.
In general, funeral or cremation costs can be split into two main categories: mandatory and avoidable costs. Mandatory costs will likely include things like collection of the person who has died from the location of their death, as well as their transportation into pre-funeral care, and to the funeral itself. Others might cover things like the preparation of the body (i.e., washing, dressing and embalming) or the burial and cremation fees themselves. Besides that, the “avoidable” costs cover optional extras that some families like to pay for, such as floral tributes to the person who has died, an attended service, or catering for a celebration of life after the funeral itself.
The cost of living crisis is one of the reasons explaining the rise of direct cremation in the UK, as it is an effective way of removing the unnecessary expenses associated with a funeral. Sadly, it also explains the parallel rise of people looking for the government’s support with paying their funeral costs.
The UK government has a number of schemes that aim to help in this regard: the Bereavement Support Payment and the Funeral Expenses Payment. Your family may also be able to gain access to your bank or building society account in order to pay your funeral costs directly from your funds there; this can be done through the Grant of Probate scheme.
One of the first things people do when someone dies is to work out how to pay the cost of their funeral. The government can provide support, which can bring relief at a difficult time, particularly when we are struggling to cope with the death of a parent, or to deal with the unexpected death of a loved one. For those looking to make use of the UK government’s Funeral Expenses Payment, it’s important to understand how much it allows you to claim, and what the eligible criteria are.
The Funeral Expenses Payment is essentially a cash sum given by the UK government for the purpose of paying burial or direct cremation prices. It is administered and paid by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to families who cannot afford to cover the necessary costs associated with a funeral. If you’ve already paid the cost of the funeral yourself, and you are claiming the expenses back from the government, it will be transferred into your bank account. If the funeral has not yet been paid for, the money will be transferred directly to the funeral provider making the funeral arrangements.
There isn’t a fixed amount offered by the government, and each payment made considers the circumstances of the applicant. The Funeral Expenses Payment aims to cover some or all of the following:
In addition to this, families could receive up to £1,000 for extra funeral expenses, such as funeral-director’s fees, the cost of a coffin or urn, or floral tributes. If the cost of the funeral is more than the amount offered by the government, the family will need to pay the difference themselves, or via other means of support. In this sense, the payment can work something like a discount, which pays for some of the cost of the funeral.
If there is any money left to pay for funeral costs from the estate of the person who has died, this will reduce the amount that can be claimed through the Funeral Expenses Payment.
In order to claim funeral costs with the DWP Funeral Expenses Payment, you need to be eligible. Broadly speaking, to meet the eligibility criteria, you need to be claiming a certain form of benefit from the state, and you need to have had a certain relationship with the person who has died.
Benefits
To be eligible for the Funeral Expenses Payment, you must already be claiming one of the following:
Relationship to the person who has died
You may be eligible for the Funeral Expenses Payment if you are:
In Scotland, the equivalent payment, which works in a similar way to the Funeral Expenses Payment, is called the Funeral Support Payment. If someone in Scotland has already received the Funeral Expenses Payment from the UK government, they will not be eligible for this one, therefore they have to choose between them.
There are a couple of steps that you will need to go through in order to claim the Funeral Expenses Payment, involving gathering relevant documentation, completing the application form, and submitting your claim.
You may need to submit various documentation and pieces of paperwork along with your claim, depending on what you are claiming for. If the funeral has already happened, you will have to provide an invoice or a final bill from the funeral provider to give an accurate record of what you needed to spend. If you didn’t use the services of a funeral director, then you may need to submit individual receipts or invoices for the different elements of the funeral, so make sure to keep these in a safe place.
If the funeral hasn’t happened yet, or if the expenses relate to a funeral plan please bear in mind that the DWP cannot accept cost estimates or provisional bills; they can only accept signed contracts which definitely show the final cost.
You will need to provide a record of the benefits that you are currently claiming, and you may also need to provide a copy of the Death Certificate of the person who has died, as well as information about their estate. Naturally, with this amount of paperwork piling up, things can get pretty confusing. You might want to consider starting a funeral checklist to help you keep on top of the admin, and to budget for the funeral.
Once you’ve gathered the information you need, you will then need to apply for the Funeral Expenses Payment. The government website recommends doing this over the phone, but you can do everything yourself and submit the form via post, if you prefer. There is an application form (SF200) to fill in, which will ask you many questions about your personal financial situation, and about what you want to claim for.
The DWP helpline can help you to apply for this payment, but your funeral director may also be willing to support you. Many of the families in Aura’s care find themselves needing this support, so our wonderful Angel Team is very familiar with this application process, and can provide guidance, should you need it.
You must submit your claim within 6 months of the funeral of the person who has died. While you need to be benefits claimant already in order to apply for the Funeral Expenses Payment, you are still able to submit a claim even if you are still waiting to hear back from the DWP about a benefits application. This will allow you to avoid unnecessary delays, or to avoid missing out on the payment altogether.
The DWP will aim to process your Funeral Expenses Payment claim within 13 working days. Should they reject your claim, you have the right to an appeal. You can get advice about this from the Citizens Advice Bureau, should you need it.
Beyond the national government, you can seek funeral cost assistance from the local government, or from charitable organisations.
In situations where someone has died and they have left nobody behind who is willing or able to pay for things, the local government is legally obliged to provide a public-health funeral for the person who has died. These have been historically referred to as a ‘pauper’s funeral’. They are different from simple cremations, which merely offer a low-cost, modern alternative to families looking to avoid a traditional funeral.
A public health funeral is generally seen as the last resort: any family members connected to the person who has died very often have no say at all on what happens, and sometimes cannot even attend the ceremony; ashes are often not returned to the families of the person who has died, and the gravesite is often left unmarked.
The Funeral Expenses Payment, on the other hand, is a completely separate idea: it gives families the chance to arrange a low-cost cremation or burial themselves, with partial or complete financial support from the UK government. The responsibility for organising the funeral is still with the family.
There are some charities in the UK that can offer financial support to families in need. For instance, there is Quaker Social Action, which can provide financial support and guidance. Other charities like Sue Ryder can signpost to financial resources, and point you towards local death cafes which can be effective places for helping you to cope with grief. Certain professions also have charitable foundations serving them, such as the Royal British Legion, which may be able to provide financial support for veteran funeral costs.
In other cases, families turn to crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe or JustGiving, where they can post a request for donations and contributions to the funeral cost of a loved one. This makes for an efficient way to integrate an appeal for funding when announcing a death to friends and family, or the wider community, as the appeal itself can be easily shared via social media.
The question of how much a funeral costs varies, as each family will have different priorities. These priorities will be shaped as much by their budgets as by their tastes. There are many different beliefs on death and funerals in religion and in society as a whole, and this can also make an impact on the kinds of things which are included in a funeral. In general, the UK government provides support with the payment of the basic funeral costs, and may be able to cover the cost of certain extras too.
Basic costs that are likely to be covered include cremation or burial fees, funeral director fees, as well as transportation from the care centre to the funeral site for the person who has died, and transportation for the family to and from the funeral where necessary. Extras, in the form of floral tributes to the person who has died or a certain kind of urn or casket may or may not be covered by the government. And anything that falls outside of the funeral itself, for instance, concerning elaborate end-of-life celebration ideas, memorials, cremation ashes ideas, or catering for a wake are unlikely to be covered.
We hope that this article has helped you feel more comfortable about how to apply for funeral cost support, like the Funeral Expenses Payment. If you’re currently organising a funeral for a loved one, we want you to feel as comfortable and as well informed as can be.
If you’d like Aura’s help with funeral arrangements, whether in the here and now 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; our industry-leading Angels are central to that recognition, who deliver our compassionate and knowledgeable service to all families 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.
