Paying for a Funeral: Price Lists, Benefits and Loans

Your rights when you buy funeral services

The Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule sets out what a funeral home must tell you and what it may not require. It is the main tool you have for controlling the bill, and it helps most if you use it before you agree to a package. No federal agency publishes a typical funeral price, so this page gives none; the price lists you collect are the numbers to plan with.

• Prices by phone. If you ask, a funeral director must give you price information over the telephone, without first taking your name or address.
• A General Price List. When you visit, the home must give you a written, itemized list of its goods and services that you may keep.
• Casket and outer container prices first. You can see a written casket price list before you see the caskets, and ask for prices of outer burial containers.
• Only what you want. You may buy goods and services separately instead of accepting a package.
• A casket or urn from elsewhere. The home cannot refuse to handle one you bought from another seller, cannot charge you a fee for it, and cannot require you to be there when it is delivered.
• A written statement before you pay, listing each item, its price and the total.

Benefits and help to check before you borrow

• Social Security's lump-sum death payment. If the person worked long enough, Social Security makes a one-time payment of $255. It can be paid only to a spouse or child who meets certain requirements, and survivors must apply within 2 years of the date of death.
• VA burial benefits. If the person was a veteran who was not dishonorably discharged and the death meets one of the VA's conditions, the person paying the costs may get a burial allowance and a plot allowance. Apply online or with VA Form 21P-530EZ; most claims must be filed within 2 years after the burial, with exceptions such as a service-connected death.
• Life insurance or a prepaid plan. Look through the person's papers for a policy or a preneed contract with a funeral home before you sign a new agreement.
• The estate. If the person left an estate, the executor may be able to pay funeral costs from it. Ask the funeral home whether it will wait for that, and keep every receipt.

These amounts often arrive after the funeral home wants payment. That timing gap, not the full bill, is what many families end up needing to cover.

Ways to bring the bill down

1. 1 Call two or three funeral homes and ask for prices by phone; you are entitled to them.
2. 2 Ask each for its General Price List and compare the same items line by line.
3. 3 Decide on the type of service first, such as a direct cremation, an immediate burial or a full service, since that choice drives most of the cost.
4. 4 Buy only the items you want, and consider a casket or urn from another seller.
5. 5 Read the written statement before you pay and question any item you did not choose.

When a personal loan fits a funeral

A personal loan suits a funeral bill when the home wants payment before insurance, benefits or the estate can pay, or when no other money is coming. It is your own debt: you repay it whether or not the estate reimburses you later. Borrow the gap you have worked out from the written statement, not the full price.

These figures are a worked example computed with the standard amortization formula, not an offer. The 5% fee leaves $6,650 to spend and raises the APR from 13% to 16.63%; the net proceeds calculator shows how much to request so the deposit covers the bill. If life insurance or estate money will arrive later, ask the lender whether you can repay early without a prepayment penalty; paying the balance down when that money comes in cuts the interest.

What to watch for

• Packages that bundle items you did not ask for. You may decline them and buy items separately.
• Sellers outside the Rule. The FTC notes that the Funeral Rule does not cover third-party sellers such as casket and monument dealers, or cemeteries that have no funeral home on site, so ask them for written prices too.
• Financing offered by the provider. Read the rate, fees and term as you would for any loan, and compare the APR with other offers.
• Pressure to decide in one visit. Ask for the price list and take it home if you need to; prices by phone let you compare first.
• Requests to pay a stranger for benefits. Social Security and VA claims are filed with those agencies directly. Be wary of anyone who asks for a fee or your bank login to speed up a claim.

Questions people ask