Take a moment to think about IF you will have your own money available at the time of Death to PAY for the funeral. If you won't have cash on hand in the bank, pre-paid funeral/cremation arrangements are great when you want to plan ahead logically, make your own personal choices, and create the budget you feel comfortable with... As a licensed funeral director, I suggest an insurance policy made as Irrevocable Change of Ownership to funeral home, no one can cash it out during life, but premiums still have to be paid regularly. OR better, pre-pay the funeral home charges via final-expense insurance or Trust Acct. Whatever money during life is put into the insurance/Trust can never be lost even if you skipped payments. You protect the "dollar value" in this method.
I'm confused on the ? - are you trying to figure out what to do in advance to pay for funeral/burial or are you at the point where you are going to need deal with a funeral in the near future and have an insurance policy that could be used?
If you do a pre-need funeral & burial, you can decide what level of services and products are to be done and the length of time to payoff in full for the tally. This is usually paid via a monthly payment plan for 5 - 10/20 years (you need to be careful on this and it has to be paid faithfully and on time so there are no issues on fulfillment). Some FH have a spin to this so that it is an insurance policy that the FH gets in full upon death to pay for their services and you can either prepay in full for the insurance policy or via a monthly payment plan. The cost will depend on their age and preexisting conditions. If they are quite old, this option really doesn't exist.
My mom did a preneed for the funeral & took over over 10 years to pay off, also has small vault insurance policy (I think because the cementary is religious they can only do it this way) for $ 200 towards opening/closing the vault (dad is there). When she dies, the funeral costs except for floral are already paid. But there will be costs related to the burial as that $ 200 ages ago will not cover the full cemetery costs. My mom has a small term life insurance policy, which if costs for burial & cemetery will run about the same amount, I can sign over the policy to the cemetery to pay off any balance. Or I can have the insurance policy pay me directly as I am the beneficiary and then I pay the cemetery. If the costs exceed the insurance policy, I will sign it over as it's just less work and write a check for the difference. The FH and cemetery will require a source of payment in order to do anything so keep this in mind.
Funerals are horrendously expensive and if you want to go that route, then doing a preened is best as you are not under stress, emotion, etc when you are making decisions. My dad wanted a full big funeral and vault and did what was needed to make that happen by & large for them. My MIL did no planning; son's did cremation. Her costs ran about $ 1,500 w/body transfer & cremation, etc.
If you do a pre-need funeral & burial, you can decide what level of services and products are to be done and the length of time to payoff in full for the tally. This is usually paid via a monthly payment plan for 5 - 10/20 years (you need to be careful on this and it has to be paid faithfully and on time so there are no issues on fulfillment). Some FH have a spin to this so that it is an insurance policy that the FH gets in full upon death to pay for their services and you can either prepay in full for the insurance policy or via a monthly payment plan. The cost will depend on their age and preexisting conditions. If they are quite old, this option really doesn't exist.
My mom did a preneed for the funeral & took over over 10 years to pay off, also has small vault insurance policy (I think because the cementary is religious they can only do it this way) for $ 200 towards opening/closing the vault (dad is there). When she dies, the funeral costs except for floral are already paid. But there will be costs related to the burial as that $ 200 ages ago will not cover the full cemetery costs. My mom has a small term life insurance policy, which if costs for burial & cemetery will run about the same amount, I can sign over the policy to the cemetery to pay off any balance. Or I can have the insurance policy pay me directly as I am the beneficiary and then I pay the cemetery. If the costs exceed the insurance policy, I will sign it over as it's just less work and write a check for the difference. The FH and cemetery will require a source of payment in order to do anything so keep this in mind.
Funerals are horrendously expensive and if you want to go that route, then doing a preened is best as you are not under stress, emotion, etc when you are making decisions. My dad wanted a full big funeral and vault and did what was needed to make that happen by & large for them. My MIL did no planning; son's did cremation. Her costs ran about $ 1,500 w/body transfer & cremation, etc.