INFORMATION can mean peace of mind. PEACE OF MIND can be found in one hour.

PRE-ARRANGEMENTS … WHY? … HOW?

The primary advantages of pre-arranging your funeral wishes are to relieve the emotional and/or financial burden on your loved ones at a time of death, to ensure your wishes are carried out as you want them to be and to lock in costs at the time of arrangement. Prearrangements are also transferrable from funeral home to funeral home for whatever reason, whether you have moved too far away or you have simply decided to use another provider. All you need do is talk to the new funeral home you’ve chosen and they will instigate the transfer on your behalf. No money is lost and it may be cancelled at any time.

Pre-planning and/or pre-paying your funeral is one of the most thoughtful gifts you can give to your family.

There are two types of formal preparation when it comes to your final affairs: 

1. A pre-discussed arrangement without payment(s) or
2. A pre-discussed arrangement with payment(s).

The pre-discussion part means that your wishes are documented at the funeral home in order to carry those wishes out when the time comes, along with all of the important information needed to do the government paperwork that Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services does on your behalf. A file with your wishes and the vital information is kept at the funeral home and that may be all that is done. This is simply called a “pre-discussion.”

The pre-payment part means that those pre-discussed plans have been fully paid for or are being paid in installments, as you see fit. Installments may be made at regular monthly intervals or on a notification basis by simply calling the funeral home when you would like a payment to be withdrawn from your account.

The money does not go to the funeral home at this time. Pre-paying means that the money is held in an interest-bearing account (usually within a depository that is specific to the funeral industry) and will gain interest over time, so that there will be more money when you die than what you initially put into it. The interest earned is often better than a bank will give you and any money that is left over after the funeral is paid for, goes back to your estate for family or friends.

WHY DO I NEED INTEREST ACCRUED ON MY PRE-PAID FUNERAL OR WHY WOULD I PUT MORE MONEY INTO THE PRE-PAYMENT THAN IS NECESSARY?

For two reasons.

1. A family member may decide that they would like to purchase flowers or publish a newspaper notice or do something that was unthought of at the time of the

arrangement and the money would be there to use. Hopefully the interest would cover any additional wishes, but if it does not, any added funds you’ve put into your prearrangement would be available.

2. While the funeral homes costs are guaranteed, the section on a funeral home contract entitled “Disbursements” is not guaranteed. These are things that are paid for by the funeral home on your behalf to other parties, such as an officiant honorarium, or the cremation/aquamation cost itself at the crematorium or aquamation site, or the death registration fee to register the death, etc. These are costs by others that the funeral home has no control over – so if those costs go up, again, the interest gained or the small additional amount you placed into your pre-paid arrangement would cover the cost of these.

So truly - getting prepared is easy, flexible in how you would like to carry it out and a wise and satisfying thing to do. And at Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services, pre-arrangements may be carried out at the funeral home, in the comfort of your own home or in a local café. It takes about one hour.