FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS2020-05-21T18:30:12+00:00

FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

Arranging a funeral has never been easy, it can be mentally taxing and draining to say the least.
As a team we’ve sat down and identified the main factors that cause concern and hope the information eases the burden for you and your family.

You could be entitled to bereavement allowance if:

  • You were 45 and over, but below the age for State Pension when your husband, wife or civil partner died.
  • They had paid enough towards their National Insurance contributions.
  • Their death was caused due to their job.

You cannot get Bereavement Allowance if, at the time your husband, wife or civil partner died:

  • You were divorced, or your civil partnership to them had been legally ended.
  • You were living with someone else, as if you were married or in a civil partnership.
  • You were in prison or legal custody.

*You must claim within three months of your husband’s, wife’s or civil partner’s death, or you may lose benefit.*

You can:

Contact the DWP Bereavement Service. They will do a quick check of what benefits you may be entitled to, and take your claim over the phone.

Phone 0345 606 0265 (0345 606 0275 if you speak Welsh and live in Wales) then:

  • Select the option ‘if you are calling to tell us about someone who has died, or check what help may be available following a bereavement’.

  • Download a ‘BB1 ’claim form at www.gov.uk/bereavement-allowance/how-to-claim

*You don’t claim for each benefit separately.*

The Bereavement Benefit Scheme was introduced on 9 April 2001, and applies to people widowed on or after this date. This applies to people who became surviving civil partners on or after 5 December 2005.

You may be entitled to a Bereavement Payment and either:

  • Widowed Parent’s Allowance, or
  • Bereavement Allowance.

In order to qualify for these bereavement benefits, your husband, wife or civil partner must have paid National Insurance contributions. The contributions you have paid in do not count for these benefits.

If they died due to an accident at work or an industrial disease, we will treat your case as if your husband, wife or civil partner had paid full National Insurance contributions.

A Bereavement Payment is a tax-free lump-sum payment of £2,000 to help you at the time your husband, wife or civil partner dies.

The Bereavement Benefit Scheme was introduced on 9 April 2001, and applies to people widowed on or after this date. This applies to people who became surviving civil partners on or after 5 December 2005.

You may be entitled to a Bereavement Payment and either:

  • Widowed Parent’s Allowance, or
  • Bereavement Allowance.

In order to qualify for these bereavement benefits, your husband, wife or civil partner must have paid National Insurance contributions. The contributions you have paid in do not count for these benefits.

If they died due to an accident at work or an industrial disease, we will treat your case as if your husband, wife or civil partner had paid full National Insurance contributions.

If you have to arrange a funeral and you or you parent are on a low income. You may be entitled to some help with the funeral costs.

A funeral payment is a one-off, tax-free payment to help cover the necessary costs of a funeral.

This includes:

  • The necessary costs of a cremation, or

  • The cost of reopening a grave and burial costs, or

  • The cost of opening a new grave and burial costs, which includes any ‘exclusive right of burial fee’ (this includes a reclaimed grave), and

  • Certain other expenses such as the cost of the death certificate and certain transport costs, and

  • Up to £700 for any other funeral expenses like funeral director’s fees, a coffin and flowers.

You must claim within 3 months of the date of the funeral.

You or your partner must receive one or more of the following benefits:

  • Income Support

  • Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance

  • Income-related Employment and Support Allowance

  • Pension Credit

  • Working Tax Credit which includes a disability or severe disability element

  • Child Tax Credit at a rate higher than the family rate

  • Housing Benefit

  • Universal Credit.

It must also be reasonable for you or your partner to pay for the funeral. This means we may need to consider the circumstances of other relatives of the person who has died.

For us to give financial help, the person needs to have been living in the UK when they died, and the funeral usually needs to be held in the UK.

If you are entitled to a Funeral Payment, this will be repaid from the estate of the person who died. Their estate includes money, property and assets that they owned. (Any home that is still lived in by a surviving partner or personal belongings inherited by relatives are not considered as a part of the estate.)

Funeral Plans

If you where lucky enough to take out one of our award winning funeral plans, then sit back and allow memories to sort out your funeral payments.

Pensions.

There may be pensions or lump sums payable by a trade union, professional body or other association, or from a provident club which will pay out the benefit when a member dies.

If the person received benefit before they died, there may be some of that benefit that is  still due. When you inform Department for Work and Pensions about the person’s death, request that a form is sent, which you can use to claim any money owed.

If you are the executor, you will receive the money due to be paid. If there is no executor but you are paying for the funeral, you will be able to claim up to the amount of the funeral costs.

Life Insurance.

If the deceased took out life insurance policy and dies before a certain age, they will pay out a lump sum of their cover. The lump sum is usually paid out after the will has been dealt with, but the insurance company may pay out some of the money when they have proof that the person has died.

Other Help.

The hospital may help to arrange the funeral of someone who dies in hospital if they are not able to trace the person’s relatives, or if their relatives can’t afford to pay for the funeral. The hospital may make a claim on the deceased person’s estate to pay for the funeral.

If the person has not died in hospital and there is no one who can take responsibility for the funeral, the local council have a duty to bury or cremate someone if no other arrangements have been made. If they have a reason to think that the person who died did not want to be cremated, then they will not arrange a cremation. They may make a claim on the person’s estate to pay for the funeral. Contact your council for more information.

Funerals can be expensive, check first whether the person who has died, had made arrangements to pay for the funeral.

If there were no funeral arrangements made prior, check where the money will come from. Otherwise, you may be responsible for payments.

If no one is able or willing to arrange and pay for the funeral, the local council, or in some cases the health authority, may pay for the funeral. They will only do this if there were no prior arrangements made.

*The sections below will give you some examples of what they might have had arranged.*

If Someone Has Arranged To Pay For Their Own Funeral.

After someone dies, their bank account is ‘frozen’, unless the account is a joint account. To gain access, the bank will ask you to provide certain documents, which will usually include the death certificate. With this you may be able to obtain part of their savings to pay for the funeral.

You should check the person’s papers for a membership certificate of the Cremation Society,  life insurance policy or a funeral plan, which has already been paid for if they have one. You should also look for letters from their past employers with details about any workplace pension scheme or personal pension. These might cover the cost of the funeral, and also provide other financial support for their surviving husband, wife or civil partner.

There may be money to pay for the funeral, from money or assets the person has left behind or through schemes and pensions that they paid into during their life.

If the person was living in residential care home or a hospital, the home or hospital will release the person’s belongings to the nearest relative, or to the person who has written permission from whoever is dealing with the will. There may be a limit on the value of the belongings the home or hospital can hand over. This is set by the local council for the area.

We advise that you do not to make final funeral arrangements until you are certain, that you do not have to report the death to the coroner. This may affect the date of which the funeral will could be held.

If you are arranging the funeral, you are responsible for paying the bill. So check first where the finance will come from and if there will be enough to cover all the funeral costs.

There are some laws in place that stipulate what to do after someone has died. Their death will need to be registered and the body will need to be properly taken care of by either burial or cremation. Please refer to the  Funeral Payments section for more information.

Determine whether there is a will, as this may give more details of what the person wished for their personal funeral arrangements.

Should you need to arrange a burial/cremation or funeral service in line with a particular religion, you can get advice from a minister of that religion or from the religious organisation that the person who died belonged to.

Many people make the decision to use a professional funeral director to organise a funeral. They choose to do this partly because it is easier, at what is usually a stressful time.

You can also organise a funeral without the help of a funeral director, but you should ask the cemeteries and crematorium department of your local council for advice.

In order for the deceased to be buried, you must have a signed Medical Certificate by a doctor. Once this is done, it then handed over to the Registrar of Births and Deaths who retain this document, then issue the certificate for the deceased burial.

It it important for the person/persons responsible for planning the funeral, to find out whether the deceased had made arrangements for a grave space in a churchyard or cemetery, by looking over their will and their papers. If so there will be a ‘deed of grant’ which confirms that a grave space has been paid for and reserved in a cemetery. A large number of cemeteries are open to all faiths and religions, meaning that you will be able have most types of services or ceremonies. These large number of cemeteries are owned by local councils or private companies, and their fees vary. Please keep in mind that there are some cemeteries and churchyards that have reached full capacity and no longer have spaces for new graves.

If you wish for  the burial to be in a churchyard, you can ask the priest or minister whether there any spaces and who has the right to be buried there.

Family, friends, clergy or your doctor may be able to suggest a local company with good reputation. If not, most local firms are listed in the Yellow Pages. Please remember that charges may vary considerably from firm to firm. You may want to make contact or visit more than one firm.

Please Note if you’ve already bought one of our funeral plans, then a trusted funeral director would have already been allocated.

I wish for the deceased to be cremated, please allow time for the cause of death to be certain.

The crematorium will require:

  • An application form signed by the next of kin or executor.

  • Two certificates of cremation (the first signed by the deceased treating doctor and another signed by a doctor with no prior involvement for treatment, to the deceased).

  • A cremation form signed by the coroner (this applies if the death has been investigated by the coroner).

There will be a fee to pay each of the two doctors to sign the cremation certificate. If the death is being investigated the death by the corner and a requires post-mortem or opens an inquest, you will not need to get a signed cremation certificate. Instead, the coroner will give you a free certificate for cremation.

You or a person of your choice can make an appointment to view the certificates signed by the two doctors before the cremation, if you request this please tell the crematorium and give them your contact details.

When the cause of death is confirmed and the crematorium are satisfied, and all the forms are filled in correctly, the ‘medical referee’ will authorise the cremation by signing the form. If a problem shall arise, the medical referee can refuse the cremation and make a request for further enquiries, but must state a reason/reasons for doing so.

The Secretary of State will appoint a ‘medical referee’ to authorise all cremations in a crematorium.

If the person died outside England and Wales, see page 20.

It is important to clearly state to the funeral director or crematorium staff what you or the deceased, wishes to be do with the ashes once the ceremony has ended. If this is had not be stated clearly,  they will to contact you to discuss your/the deceased wishes to do with them. You may wish to scatter someone’s ashes in a garden of remembrance or their favourite place, bury them in a churchyard or cemetery, or you may wish to bury or scatter them on private land if you have the permission from the landowner, or you can keep them.

In the case of babies and very young children, there may be no ashes after a cremation. At some crematoriums, you may wish to arrange a memorial plaque, which you may be charged for.

Like many of us, we find it difficult to know/find the words to say or ways in which we can help once we find out that someone we know has been bereaved.

Depending on the relationship we have with the bereaved person and whether we knew the person who died, there are many things that  we can do to make a difference, even in smallest ways.

One of the most important things is not to pretend it hasn’t happened or to make distance with the bereaved person completely. To say that we are sorry to hear the loss, of the person that has died acknowledges the importance of this event, whether we have the opportunity to say this in person or by sending a card or letter.

If we are in a position to offer practical help, there are a number of possibilities such as shopping to make sure there is always enough tea, coffee, milk and sugar for the increased number visitors that will come to the home. Cooking dishes that can go in a freezer or bringing food around on a tray at this when people often have a diminished appetite and reduced energy for food preparation can be a great help.

Preparing and making time to sit with a bereaved person in silence while they cry if they feel to is a real gif,  also to be able to listen to reminiscences and share memories sometimes over and over again. Telling the story of what has happened, especially in the last days and hours of someone’s life is an important part of beginning to accept that the person really has died.

In the early days after a death there is a always a lot to do. Offering lifts to the registrar, the funeral director, the cemetery or the bank can be a great help.

Helping with them with the housework or helping them make sure they have suitable clothing to wear for the funeral (taking it to the dry cleaners if necessary) may seem small and insignificant to us but will be remembered with great gratitude.

Our offers of help are more likely to be accepted If we can suggest help with practical things, our offer will be more likely to be accepted. A practical offer at this time is more help than  ‘let me know if there is anything I can do’, which may be too vague for the bereaved person to be sure if the offer is genuine offer or not. Sometimes having an idea how you may be able to help shows that you are being genuine and allows the space for the bereaved person to ask you to help later, if the right moment is not at the time you offered.

It is also important to remember that if someone says ‘no thank you’  you do not take offence. It may be that there we prior arrangements have been made with other people, who we are unaware of. Meaning that we are genuinely not needed or it may just not be the right moment. Reassuring someone that your offer of help stands if things change is important.

A funeral is often given to honor the person who has passed on. The funeral is also for emotional support for the family of the lost loved one. The planning process of the funeral helps with the grieving process. This gives the family some time to accept and grieve for the loved one. During this time support for the family from friends is expressed with brining meals or just being there when they are alone. People grieve different ways so here are few rules that should be followed when dealing with a death close to someone you care about.

Expressing your sympathy or condolences to the family should be done in a brief statement unless the family member asked to speak with you about it. A simple “I am sorry for your loss” or “I’m sorry” is fine unless you knew the family very well. If this is the case you may say something like “James will be missed very much” or “He was a good friend.”

When attending the funeral you should dress modestly in dull colors though day it is becoming more common for bright colors. Before you dress you need to take into consideration how the family is feeling. If this was a tragic death, you will not want to wear a bright yellow suit. Viewing the body should be done in a respectful quiet manner. Whether it is during the funeral or calling hours you must think of the family and how they are feeling.

Thank you notes should be sent to anyone who sent gifts such as flowers, brought meals, or helped in any other way. A thank you card with a signature is all that is required though many still send personal thank you notes. Pallbearers should each be sent a thank you note. It is not required to send everyone who attend during the calling hours a note.

Like many of us, we find it difficult to know/find the words to say or ways in which we can help once we find out that someone we know has been bereaved.

Depending on the relationship we have with the bereaved person and whether we knew the person who died, there are many things that  we can do to make a difference, even in smallest ways.

One of the most important things is not to pretend it hasn’t happened or to make distance with the bereaved person completely. To say that we are sorry to hear the loss, of the person that has died acknowledges the importance of this event, whether we have the opportunity to say this in person or by sending a card or letter.

If we are in a position to offer practical help, there are a number of possibilities such as shopping to make sure there is always enough tea, coffee, milk and sugar for the increased number visitors that will come to the home. Cooking dishes that can go in a freezer or bringing food around on a tray at this when people often have a diminished appetite and reduced energy for food preparation can be a great help.

Preparing and making time to sit with a bereaved person in silence while they cry if they feel to is a real gif,  also to be able to listen to reminiscences and share memories sometimes over and over again. Telling the story of what has happened, especially in the last days and hours of someone’s life is an important part of beginning to accept that the person really has died.

In the early days after a death there is a always a lot to do. Offering lifts to the registrar, the funeral director, the cemetery or the bank can be a great help.

Helping with them with the housework or helping them make sure they have suitable clothing to wear for the funeral (taking it to the dry cleaners if necessary) may seem small and insignificant to us but will be remembered with great gratitude.

Our offers of help are more likely to be accepted If we can suggest help with practical things, our offer will be more likely to be accepted. A practical offer at this time is more help than  ‘let me know if there is anything I can do’, which may be too vague for the bereaved person to be sure if the offer is genuine offer or not. Sometimes having an idea how you may be able to help shows that you are being genuine and allows the space for the bereaved person to ask you to help later, if the right moment is not at the time you offered.

It is also important to remember that if someone says ‘no thank you’  you do not take offence. It may be that there we prior arrangements have been made with other people, who we are unaware of. Meaning that we are genuinely not needed or it may just not be the right moment. Reassuring someone that your offer of help stands if things change is important.