Funeral plans

[crankedup]

Earlier this year my wife and I purchased our funeral plans from the Co-operative Funeral Services. Mine is paid for outright and my wife’s we are paying in monthly instalments for one year.
I read in the newspaper that very recently the Co-op have reduced the cost of thier funeral plans by an average of £1k each plan for the purposes of competing with Dignitas.
My question is what are the chances of a reimbursement from the Co-op for the reduction in plan costs?
Yes we chose to buy each plan at the cost as advertised several months ago but I feel that the Co-op may have a moral stance to take on the issue!I will be contacting them of course but would be interested to hear of your opinions and thoughts.
Thanks.

[randlemarcus]

My suspicion is that the services provided will have changed, and you would be entitled to the services as set out in your contract, i.e. pine box, hearse, slow walking bloke and the putting your corpse for folks to inspect oddness.

Maybe the new one is lease of a bodybag, collection in a black Transit, and the crem on a wet Tuesday morning at 9?

Probably best to have a word with them, just to make sure you aren't getting less, having paid the higher price.

I would encourage anyone to make sure their wishes are quite clear, and they have arranged the money to be available, whether its via this "give someone a couple of grand to play with for the next ten years" or a brown envelope in the bureau. Personally, transit, Tuesday morning, and some egg sarnies will do just fine. I'm not going to enjoy it anyway

[crankedup]

randlemarcus said:

My suspicion is that the services provided will have changed, and you would be entitled to the services as set out in your contract, i.e. pine box, hearse, slow walking bloke and the putting your corpse for folks to inspect oddness.

Maybe the new one is lease of a bodybag, collection in a black Transit, and the crem on a wet Tuesday morning at 9?

Probably best to have a word with them, just to make sure you aren't getting less, having paid the higher price.

I would encourage anyone to make sure their wishes are quite clear, and they have arranged the money to be available, whether its via this "give someone a couple of grand to play with for the next ten years" or a brown envelope in the bureau. Personally, transit, Tuesday morning, and some egg sarnies will do just fine. I'm not going to enjoy it anyway

Yup, always look on the bright side!
I have emailed the business seeking a resolution. Having read the contract I now understand that it will cost me £200 per plan to cancel outright. The potential saving to buy back the exact same plans is £2k, a handy saving of £1600.
As for the funerals, woodland burials in seagrass coffins together with a very substantial bar tab in my name

[anonymous-user]

They might say you can have the reduction if you use it sooner!

That is to be avoided!

[crankedup]

JPJPJP said:

They might say you can have the reduction if you use it sooner!

That is to be avoided!

They want us to hang on for as long as possible what with the cash we have invested that they are earning money from!
I will post back when I hear from the Co-op with thier comments. like I mentioned if all else fails I will cancel both plans and buy back at the lower cost.

[sas62]

crankedup said:

Yup, always look on the bright side!
I have emailed the business seeking a resolution. Having read the contract I now understand that it will cost me £200 per plan to cancel outright. The potential saving to buy back the exact same plans is £2k, a handy saving of £1600.
As for the funerals, woodland burials in seagrass coffins together with a very substantial bar tab in my name

I see the cheapest burial plan as £2795 on their website. Are you seeing £2k online or is this direct from the company?

[sas62]

Looking at news reports, I see the reduction seems to be by £100 not £1000. Are you sure you have the figures correct?

[Simpo Two]

The phrase 'pre-paid funeral plan' pervaded my ears at some time today and I thought 'WTF? I want a POST-paid one!'

[crankedup]

sas62 said:

Looking at news reports, I see the reduction seems to be by £100 not £1000. Are you sure you have the figures correct?

Certainly the £1k number was used on the television report that I watched. Our plans cost around £3700 each, a one hundred pound drop would be insignificant and certainly not place the Co-op into a more competitive trading position against its main competitor, Dignitas.

I have emailed the business and await reply. I will post back in due course

Edited by crankedup on Sunday 23 September 23:08

[crankedup]

Simpo Two said:

The phrase 'pre-paid funeral plan' pervaded my ears at some time today and I thought 'WTF? I want a POST-paid one!'

Indeed, and many people do opt for that through thier bereaved families having to pay and arrange funerals for loved ones. As if it were not stressful enough for them at such a time. It’s why we chose to pre pay and remove that burden of payment and funeral arrangements from them. Plus we are assured of the send off that we want.

[Jockman]

When you say Dignitas is the main competitor of Funeralcare, do you not mean Dignity? Or do you actually mean Dignitas in a surreal way, as they are an end of life supplier as opposed to pre-need?

[anonymous-user]

Jockman said:

When you say Dignitas is the main competitor of Funeralcare, do you not mean Dignity? Or do you actually mean Dignitas in a surreal way, as they are an end of life supplier as opposed to pre-need?

Freudian slip?

[crankedup]

EddieSteadyGo said:

Jockman said:

When you say Dignitas is the main competitor of Funeralcare, do you not mean Dignity? Or do you actually mean Dignitas in a surreal way, as they are an end of life supplier as opposed to pre-need?

Freudian slip?

Must be getting old! That’s a really bad error in context of the thread subject

[CAPP0]

Not to be standard-issue PH-argumentative, but unless there are fundamentally-different offerings and you'd like to change from one to the other, I can't see why they would refund you the difference. If they had put it UP by £1000, would you expect to cough up the difference after you'd taken out the plan?

[crankedup]

sas62 said:

Looking at news reports, I see the reduction seems to be by £100 not £1000. Are you sure you have the figures correct?

Thanks for pointing this out, I have indeed made an error in stating a £1k reduction. It is a £100 reduction on the cheapest plan, as you mentioned.

[crankedup]

CAPP0 said:

Not to be standard-issue PH-argumentative, but unless there are fundamentally-different offerings and you'd like to change from one to the other, I can't see why they would refund you the difference. If they had put it UP by £1000, would you expect to cough up the difference after you'd taken out the plan?

Cerrtainly, I have acknowledged as such in my op
it’s always worth a try and tbh that is what I had in mind.

[Contract Killer]

crankedup said:

Plus we are assured of the send off that we want.

Why would you care? you will be dead.....

I honestly couldn't care what happens to me once I'm dead, you could just chuck me in a builders skip for all i care.


The thought of paying thousands for a funeral while your still alive is just nuts IMO.


But then i can't believe what people pay for funerals! Chuck the body in the oven, then retreat to the pub with a few grand behind the bar is what it should be.

[crankedup]

Contract Killer said:

crankedup said:

Plus we are assured of the send off that we want.

Why would you care? you will be dead.....

I honestly couldn't care what happens to me once I'm dead, you could just chuck me in a builders skip for all i care.


The thought of paying thousands for a funeral while your still alive is just nuts IMO.


But then i can't believe what people pay for funerals! Chuck the body in the oven, then retreat to the pub with a few grand behind the bar is what it should

I used to be in the funeral service industry as a professional, seen far too many families hand wringing over ‘is it the funeral they would have wanted’ and we can’t afford a decent funeral. We don’t want our family to have that burden either in a financial or moral sense.
We see it as a responsible attitude to life.

Also if I pop my clogs before my wife then she has no doubts as to what needs to be done & ditto me.

Edited by crankedup on Monday 24th September 15:16

[sas62]

I think its a good attitude. My mum had arranged things without us knowing and it certainly made everything much easier at a particularly tough time so I will be doing the same.

[Alickadoo]

I do apologise for resurrecting this thread, but there have been developments.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw2end840vo

and lots more links at the bottom of that BBC News piece.

My point is - why do people bother with funeral plans? I suggest that they are not good value for money - leaving aside the possibility of losing most, if not all, of your money.