Thanks for the link. Quite illuminating. Another example of what happens when the government is lax how too many people will let greed take over and prey on others.

Much smarter is to get a term life insurance policy when you are young enough that will bury you when you die.

Consumer reports has researched pre-paid funerals and are dead-set against them because of many drawbacks like the one I described.

If you are too old to afford a term life insurance policy to provide death benefits, then buy an escalator GIC which will give you more money if kept to 3, 5 or 7 years and give orders to keep rolling it over into another one to keep it growing.

IN your will, you designate that GIC or whatever to cover funeral costs.

Amazon.com has some books about the horrendous troubles people have ended up with due to prepaid funerals. I would not touch one with a ten-foot pole [or even a ten foot Canadian! (:-)

Here the AARP, similar to our CARP warns against prepaid as a scam.

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/funeral_rip_off.html

MoneyEnergy: Great points on the eco-friendly funeral. I’ve noticed eco-friendly options are becoming more popular in the funeral industry.

Jas: You’re right. There is a lot of money to be made in the funeral industry or in the retirement / aging business in the next three few decades. It’s not the line of work I’d want to work in but for those who would enjoy it, it would be a profitable business in the years to come.

Novice: The best use of your remains! Sounds like a great way to celebrate your life.

Dave: There is very little information on the prepaid funeral in Canada that isn’t written by a funeral home which creates obvious bias. Lots of different demographics read MDJ. So, no, we’re not even close to running out of things to write about.

I heard somewhere that a lot of this is owned by the Church. There’s a portion of the pie for you.

I guess the ideal situation is to sit down with a funeral director and pick out the details of what you would like and note that down in your will. This way it will be much easier for the people left behind to take care of the arrangements.

Instead of stating, in an offhand way, “Oh, just a simple arrangement” you could put limits on the expenditure for flowers, the coffin, music, etc. But, unless you go through the process, how would you know?

And this way, you also relieve the burden, and possible guilt, that your family/friends may take on. Instead of placing them in a difficult position of exactly how much to spend to show their love, you’ve taken care of most of the decisions.

This way, you can avoid prepaying for the funeral but ultimately achieve a similar goal.

Finally – does the government provide a $2,500 payout upon a person’s death (I assume once their final tax return has been submitted)?