LAST REQUEST
How to plan your own funeral
It’s a conversation many of us don’t want to have, but we really should. Discussing our funerals might seem morbid, but not only does it mean you can get the send-off you’d like, but it can also take the pressure off your nearest and dearest at an emotional time for them.
Even if you are in good health, it doesn’t hurt to jot down your wishes to save your loved ones from having to make decisions. It can be a huge help if they know whether you want to be cremated or buried, what kind of service you’d like and even if you’ve got any musical requests.
Taking the time to talk is the theme of a campaign launched by the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand (FDANZ).
Its CEO, Katrina Shanks, says, “In recent years, many Kiwis have embraced discussions about retirement planning and financial planning, but we aren’t talking enough about our final wishes or planning for our funeral.
“Although the message is serious, this year’s campaign is intentionally light-hearted to help grab people’s attention and make them think about whether they would really want to leave some of the important decisions to others.
“For example, would you want to leave your final fashion statement up to your everhelpful Aunt Mabel?”
If a conversation is tricky, you can get a kit called My Life, My Funeral from funeral directors who are members of FDANZ. There’s a section where you can record personal information that will be required by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, such as your date and place of birth.
You can also write down details of people who should be notified of your death, from friends and acquaintances
through to service providers.
The final part of the kit is for recording your preferences for your funeral arrangements, including making a note of things you don’t want. There are prompts to assist you and a space at the end for special instructions.
The kit can be left with other important papers for such a time when it is needed – just make sure somebody knows you’ve filled it in.
Bear in mind that even if you have told people what you want, under current law, your wishes don’t have to be carried out. If your family thinks your desire for your coffin to be carried out to the Queen song Another One Bites the Dust is inappropriate, they can ignore it! Being able to appoint someone you trust as the “deceased’s representative” to act on your behalf so you get the funeral you want is one of the recommendations put forward in a recent review of New Zealand’s burial and creation law by the Law Commission.
The commission’s report is currently before Parliament. It contains 127 recommendations on ways to improve and update the outdated Burial and Cremation Act of 1964. These include getting funeral service providers to give customers an itemised statement of costs before a contract is signed.
One of the scariest aspects of a funeral is the cost. The FDANZ says the average bill is $8800, which includes the funeral director’s fees ($2854), burial or cremation fees
($2010), casket ($2875), celebrant ($300), catering
($500) and flowers ($110).
Rather than burdening your family with a hefty bill, which they will need to claim back from your estate, it’s a good idea to have a payment plan in place. If you’re really organised
and have the spare cash, you can pre-pay for all or part of your funeral.
Other options include starting your own savings account specifically for your funeral, taking out funeral insurance or setting up a funeral trust. Some life and health insurance companies include funeral payments in their policies, so check the smallprint.
If you or your family don’t have enough money to cover funeral expenses, a grant of up to just over $2000 from WINZ may be available. Only a partner, child, parent or guardian of the deceased person can claim the grant, and the assets you’ve left will be means-tested, as will the income and assets of your family if a family member is arranging the funeral.
The grant is to help with the cost of the casket, hearse, cremation and purchase of a burial plot, but not flowers, chapel fees or death certificates.
ACC may provide a funeral grant of up to about $6000 for people who die in accidents, from a work-related illness or as a result of medical treatment. The family of murder victims can receive up to $10,000.
When it comes to arranging funerals, many people like to hand as much as possible over to the funeral director, who has the experience and the knowledge to get everything done. They can look after everything from putting notices in newspapers and online, preparing and embalming the body, liaising with the crematorium or cemetery, and organising the venue and catering for the wake.
But what people often don’t realise is there is no legal requirement to use a
‘Discussing your funeral can take the pressure off your nearest and dearest at an emotional time’
funeral director. Families can organise everything themselves, or else engage a funeral director for just some of their services.
Registered funeral celebrant Gail McJorrow says the biggest myth about funerals is that you need a funeral home and that a body needs embalming, which is not the case. A body can also be kept at home and a coffin is not necessary – a shroud will suffice.
“Most people think there’s this prescriptive process you need to go through,” says Gail. “That’s a fallacy. A home death is like a home birth. You can do pretty much whatever you want – you can have no funeral, you can have one at night, you can pick a body up in a car…”
The Eastbourne grandmother has launched the website bettersendoff.co.nz that lists “everything you need to know to give your loved one the best send-off”.
She has also written an “ultimate” funeral guide and has a garage full of flat-pack coffins she’s hoping garden centres might want to stock.
Attending her father-inlaw’s funeral two years ago motivated the 55-year-old to let people know that they could take control of their loved ones’ funerals. She says she had seen too many funerals like his, where families had become passive bystanders to men in suits talking about someone they didn’t know.
She has recently helped out with a farewell to a loved one that cost just $1200, which was spent on the casket and cremation. The deceased left the hospice in the family car and there was no service.
“There were no newspaper ads,” recalls Gail. “Everyone knew he was dying, all his good friends came and saw him over the last few days – they had a chance to say goodbye. It was far more intimate and meaningful than an impersonal, sterile service.
“The MC at my mother-inlaw’s funeral said her name wrong at the first mention. There was a disconnect straight away. I’d rather have a family member – even if they were bawling their eyes out the whole time – who actually knew the person than someone who is just eloquent and professional.”
She stresses there is no such thing as a perfect funeral, nor is there any need for urgency.
“As someone said, when a person dies, pick up the jug, not the phone,” she tells. “The most important thing is to just sit in the grief bubble and not do anything for a while.
“Once the official agencies get involved, it becomes a whole lot less personal.”