Has anyone ever taken out funeral insurance here?
We’ve been following the industry for a while now ( http://consumeraction.org.au/indigenous-insurance-exploitation-must-stopped-following-court-decision-consumer-groups/ ) and have come across a slew of problems.
Keen to hear some experiences!
-JB
CHOICE has an article about funeral insurance here. I’ve looked into it a little and decided it wasn’t a good choice for me. It seemed complicated and potentially piercer in the long run. I think a pre-paid option is better.
You had your smarts about you on that one! 
The options discussed in the well written article by Uta Mihm here https://www.choice.com.au/money/insurance/life/buying-guides/life-insurance are great … if you are a youngish (sub-50) person.
But here we are (my wife and I) having been a single income family, and having raised two families. And with Superannuation kicking off at 3% in 1992, you can imagine we do not have a lot of Superannuation.
Added to that, at my age (66) the Life Insurance cover attached to my super, is only about $16k. We clearly wanted to be certain the family was not going to be footing the bill to see us off when our time comes, so we did take out Funeral Insurance a couple of years ago. It is costing us $72/month for $5k cover each. Easy to see that this will soon exceed the cost of the funeral - we have not started on our bucket list yet, so expect many more good years ahead (don’t we all)!
The problem with taking out Life Insurance is that you can not get a policy to cover you for very small amounts - the companies want you to be buying the $big policy, and that is not what we want.
I don’t know if they have done any research on this, but we have spoken to our friends, and the people I work with, and they too do not want the big life insurance policy.
There is a niche market here, if someone wants to cater for it.
I have done a bit of a Google search, and there are about 5 unheard of companies who will cover people our age for small amounts.
So far I have not gone any further with investigating this, but would really appreciate some input by people who do know and understand where I am coming from.
At $72/month we are spending roughly $850/pa. Surely there is a life insurance policy that will cater for us, for that kind of premium.
I think we can do better, but we are reluctant to be trusting this to unknown boutique insurers.
Any ideas that might assist here?
My wife and I (then aged 75) joined the W A Retirees to use their Funeral Fund in 2011. The initial cost per person was $2841 + Admin Fee $70 + Annual Membership $25. There has been an annual increase in the Fund Fee of around $110, so we pay just under $150 pp each year for continued coverage. The Fund gives us a choice of a range of funeral companies to chose from and covers all the basic funeral costs, so I think we are well covered.
John Lockley Perth
Appreciate your reply, John. Thank you.
Will do a bit of searching for anything in Qld that may operate in a similar manner.
Your note prompted me to think a little more widely.
Ivan Ballin, Sunshine Coast
I worked in the funeral industry for a short while and funeral insurance is an expensive option if you’re not later on in life. Pre-paid is cheaper for most.
The cheapest “funeral” is donating ones body to science/medical schools and having a memorial meal with friends and family. They will return the final cremains to the family on request.
I just paid $11,000 for a funeral which included everything: my choice of funeral director, newspaper ads, church service, ceremony booklets, music, flowers, religious decorations, coffin, burial plot and burial, etc (but not headstone - that’s 3 months away). The death was a lot sooner than expected but anticipated several years ago. I anticpated spending up to $15,000 and invested that in a high interest account that was difficult for me to withdraw from - so I wasn’t tempted to spend it on other things. So, together with interest earned over the last few years I got “change” back which will be used for a nice headstone down the track. Oh, and one more tip: I had increased the limit on my credit card to cover the anticipated cost, paid for it that way, and am enjoying almost 60 days of interest-free “loan” of the money before I have to repay (earning more bank interest on my initial deposit in the process).
An interesting article regarding funeral insurance.
Little wonder the likes of Australian Seniors Insurance Agency and their ilk advertise funeral insurance ad infinitum on TV.
The Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund has been taken to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority 28 times recently for misleading and deceptive conduct over pretending to be an Aboriginal organisation:
