My long term life insurance is about to expire and will be a lot more expensive. I am 69 and basically retired. Should I get a cheap policy for funeral expenses?
The insurance company’s fee adds an additional expense. Consider instead some of the things that Clark has recommended to reduce funeral expenses: finding a less expenses funeral facility at funeral.org or through a memorial society and getting a casket from Costco or Walmart. You could include the information in a document that you give to those who will organize your funeral.
You should have enough funds in your estate to pay for your funeral expenses. If you don’t just take the amount you would pay in life insurance premiums and put it in a savings account every month.
Plan on a cremation. Far less expensive than a traditional casket funeral. You are eliminating embalming, clothes, makeup, casket, vault, plot, etc.
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There are some states where you are blocked from buying a casket from COSTCO or other shipper. When my Brother-In-Law died, I tried COSTCO but they said they cannot ship to Virginia (at that time - Virginia now allows it). We found a company with Virginia in the name but was in Texas. I suspect they had an ‘office’ in Virgina and thus bypassed the law.
I had my Sister go to the funeral home and she got prices for the funeral (they had to list casket prices separately). I told her to pick the service she wanted and tell them that she had to check with the family on which casket they might want. If the funeral home suspects that you might be suppling your own casket, they may increase the price of the service to offset their loss on casket profit. I then ordered the casket from a company in Texas to be sent to her town and the shipper also coordinated the delivery from the airport to the funeral home. We then told the funeral hoime to expect the casket delivery. We saved thousands.
Good idea on savings. We don’t plan to be cremated
When my term policy was about to expire, I found I could switch to universal life with the same super-preferred status as I originally got for my term policy. Since I was no longer in super-preferred shape, I grabbed it. I reduced my original insurance from 200K to 100K and ended up paying a little less $100 a month for it the policy. I’m not seeing that funeral policies are much less. For instance Colonial Life charges $9.99 for just a $1000 policy. Well, do the math.