Should I buy a prepaid funeral plan?

Price War Breaks Out

Over the last few months we have seen something change fundamentally in the funeral market, something that is good for everyone that is looking to buy a prepaid funeral plan – a price war between the biggest players.  Just like with your weekly food shop when Aldi and Lidl turned up and started to undercut the likes of Asda and Tesco’s they responded with price cuts and value brands all of which was good for the everyone in that grocery prices dropped.

What’s happened ?

Well the same is finally happening in the prepaid funeral plan market.  Over the last few months we have seen Co-op funeral care, Golden Charter and Dignity all fine tuning their prices.  Golden Charter in particular have slashed their prices and leapt to the top of the pricing tables by matching the Co-operative’s prices across all of their funeral plans but unfortunately they have neglected to address the fundamental issue that their plans aren’t guaranteed to cover the third party costs, known as disbursements in the industry things like crematorium and clergy fees, associated with a funeral.  So whilst Golden Charter plans are now better value we still wouldn’t recommend them.

Why should I care ?

The good news is that both Co-op and Dignity who, in our opinion offer the most comprehensive prepaid funeral plans by guaranteeing to cover disbursements associated with a funeral, have both improved the prices of their funeral plans too.  So Co-op funeral care remains the cheapest of all the big providers and so are still our ‘best price funeral plan’ with Dignity a strong second an still worthy of our ‘best buy’ recommendation.

As with all purchases it is important to make sure you understand what you are buying, particular with substantial investments like a prepaid funeral plan.  Our site provides comparisons of all of the big funeral providers prepaid plans to make it easy for you to compare and build your understanding before you make your choice of which plan suits your needs best.