Due to the rising costs of funerals, many people worry over whether they’ll leave enough money behind to pay for everything. A funeral plan allows you to pay for your future plans, ensuring that your loved ones aren’t faced with any unexpected costs.

At the same time, a prepaid funeral plan provides your family and friends with all the help and support they need during a distressing time. You can make all the decisions in advance, meaning they won’t be bombarded with questions or a potentially confusing list of options.

When arranging your plan, you can opt to pay for it in one single lump sum or spread the cost over a set number of installments, depending on what the most convenient option for you is.

The money you pay is either invested into a trust fund or into an insurance policy, which is then used to pay for the funeral whenever it happens. The idea of a prepaid plan is to protect your money to make certain that it will pay for the funeral you have decided upon.

According to the International Longevity Center, the average cost of a funeral in 2017 is £3,693, but this is set to rise to £5,226 by 2020. Arranging a prepaid plan means that you can protect yourself and your loved ones from these rising funeral costs.

In addition, there are certain guarantees that come with this type of funeral insurance, such as knowing that once you’ve paid for it all the services under the plan will be covered.

Your plan will also mean that there will be no extra charges for these services, even if the costs have increased in the interim, which protects your family and friends against unforeseen fees.

This is really a matter of choice and comes down to what best suits you. Clearly a lump sum involves a commitment of money up front, whereas instalments allow you to spread the cost.

You should also be aware that an instalment arrangement will normally require payment of outstanding instalments by your family if death occurs before all instalments have been paid.

There are insurance backed plans where no further payment would be required if death occurs before all installments have been paid, though these usually have a period of up to 2 years where the value of the plan on death would be limited to a return of the contributions paid.

A “nominated funeral director” is normally allocated, either at your specific request or by us. This will be the funeral director who will carry out the funeral, unless something else changes such as you moving home.

When death occurs, the nominated funeral director carries out the funeral according to the terms of the plan, and the trust or life insurance company pays the funeral director for doing so.