Soaring Funeral Costs Could Reach £25k According to Funeral Planning Experts Over50choices
(PRWEB UK) 15 July 2013 -- Over50choices, a new personal finance comparison website for the Over 50s, warns against the dangers of doing nothing.
Speaking on behalf of the company, Managing Director Ashley Shepherd said, “Funeral costs have risen consistently over the last 8 years, which unfortunately is a pattern that looks set to continue, certainly for the foreseeable future.
With savings falling short in many cases, families are having to look for other ways to pay for funeral costs, all too often resulting in financial hardship. Many people are under the misconception that funeral planning is for the elderly but if you put plans in place at a younger age, it’s a far less emotional process and could save you a lot of money. And with over 100,000* people dying in their 50s to 70s, you never know what’s around the corner, so it’s better to be prepared.”
The average cost of a funeral is currently £3,284, a cost that has risen by around 7% each year since 2004. So if things continue, a 50 year old living to the national average life expectancy of 80, could expect to pay up to £25,000.
Taking into account that interest rates on savings are currently around 1.5%, it’s easy to see why people get caught out thinking their savings will cover these every increasing costs.
Ashley goes on to say, “Of course we realise these are scary figures and it would be difficult to imagine inflation will always be this high but we do need to change the way we think about funding these costs and put plans in place to protect our family’s future.
There are a number of ways this can done, either by putting money aside that takes into account inflation rates or paying from your estate; or you could buy either a Prepaid Funeral Plan or Over 50 Life Insurance to help cover the funeral costs. We just want to highlight the risk and get people to start looking at their options before it becomes more of a problem.”
To help demonstrate the issue, Over50choices has created a unique, interactive, easy to use funeral planning calculator that shows how much a person could expect to pay based on their current age and life expectancy.
The calculator shows the shortfall between a person’s savings at 1.5% compared with funeral costs increasing at 7% and a more conservative 3%. It also illustrates how much someone could potentially save if they arranged a funeral at today’s prices with a Prepaid Funeral Plan.
Many funeral plans these days guarantee to cover funeral directors costs and services as well as pay an allowance towards third party charges such as cremation or burial fees, doctor’s fees for the death certificate and minister’s charges. Over50choices believes that although all these fees may not be fully covered (depending on the plan you choose), freezing the majority of these funeral costs at today’s prices could save people a lot of money and heartache in years to come.
For more information on funeral planning, please visit http://www.over50choices.co.uk
• 2011 figures according to the ONS
Ashley Shepherd, Over50choices.co.uk, http://www.over50choices.co.uk, 07977917714, [email protected]
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