Taking care of funeral plans and expenses ahead of time can be a real gift to your family. It saves your family from having to plan a funeral while they are grieving. It can also save money. Prepaying for a funeral service can guarantee that you are able to specify the type of service you want. Funerals can be expensive, and prepaying can also save your loved ones the stress of having to come up with the funds to pay for a funeral on their own.

When you purchase a pre-paid funeral plan, you can customize it to include things like the casket, urn or flowers. In some cases, you can pay a set price to the funeral home and your price is locked in. This means, even if prices go up your loved ones won’t need to pay any extra when the time comes. In other instances, the price is not locked in, so if prices go up your loved ones will be responsible for the difference. But keep in mind, they will still be paying less than if they had to pay for the whole thing.

You may wonder what happens if you end up not needing the full prepayment amount to pay for a funeral service. If you end up not needing the full amount, what happens generally depends on the policies of the individual funeral home, and possibly the state the home is located in.

In most cases, since the cost of funeral services will likely go up from the time of purchase, it is very likely you will end up using all of the prepayment funds – even if you change your burial plans.

If you do not end up using all the funds because you switch to a less expensive funeral service, such as switching from burial to cremation, you may get a refund from the funeral home. However, this is not always the case so be sure to ask the funeral home when you are preplanning what their policies are.