Identity Theft and Death
Protect Your Identity!
Identity Theft – Funeral planning should encompass protecting you or your loved one from identity theft after death. As terrible as it sounds you are even a more likely victim for this type of theft. As sad as it sounds there are predators out there who find the dead an irresistible target. Why? Because the dead can’t fight back!
While you’re dealing with loss, grief and burial costs now you have to deal with identity theft. The matter can be cleared up by producing a death certificate. The problem is it could be weeks or months before the problem comes to light. Often times it could be years before you realize that your loved ones identity was stolen.
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Body Donation
Planning your funeral makes sense
Funeral planning guides should have information regarding Body Donation. It has become popular in recent years. Some people honestly want to help to further research in medical science to find cures for disease or assist in the training of new doctors.CemeterySpot, Inc.
There is simply no adequate replication for the human body when it comes to teaching and research. The gift of donation provides the ability to find cures for debilitating conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer’s among many others. Donations are also important to develop new medicines, study human anatomy and practice and perfect new surgical procedures.
Each donation is highly valued and treated with the utmost humanity, compassion and respect. Most people are eligible for donation regardless of their age, disease, or state of health.
Many people are under the impression that you pay nothing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. After medical personnel are done with the body the family is notified to retrieve the body for burial (at the family’s expense).cards&gifts
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Caskets and Funeral Planning
Don't overpay for caskets
A funeral planning guide will inform you about caskets. Caskets come in a variety of styles. The two most common are wood and metal caskets. Everyone has a preference. Metal has more of a modern theme or feel. Wood offers a warm feel that most people like. Most American funeral homes carry a wide variety of caskets from reputable manufacturers. Be aware of cheap caskets!
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Funeral Insurance
Pre arranging your funeral makes sense
This term is actually a misnomer; your funeral is actually funded with an insurance product. There are three primary ways to pay for your funeral; A funeral trust, a life insurance policy or a savings account that a family member can access at the time of need.
Most importantly you need to advise your family that you have made such plans. If they don’t know, they may end up paying for these services all over. If you chose to go with a funeral trust, this can be setup with a bank or a funeral home.
Be sure that you specify what type of funeral you want. Pay particular detail to travel expenses or any other special requirements you might have. Make sure that each service you want is listed or you may not receive it.
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Funeral Planning in Español
Don't overpay for caskets
Si a usted no le importa lo que pase, su familia tendrá una misión mucho más difícil de lo necesario. Cuando alguien muere sin haber hecho planes o gastos fúnebres por anticipado, un miembro de la familia, que puede no tener idea alguna de lo que usted desea, tiene que decidir qué tipo de funeral usted tendrá y dónde se le enterrará.
Normalmente, cuando hay un fallecimiento en la familia, las decisiones tienden a estar empañadas por el dolor y no se toman de manera razonable. Hay algunas de las preguntas están relacionadas con el dinero. ¿Qué parte de su herencia debe usarse para el funeral? ¿Qué tipo de ataúd escogería usted?
¿Cuánto debe gastarse en flores? ¿Y en los carros fúnebres? Algunas de estas preguntas están relacionadas con gustos personales. Usted escoge a las personas que cargarán su ataúd. Usted escoge la música para la ceremonia fúnebre.aprenda ingles
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Victims of Violent Crime
Planning your funeral makes sense
Victims of Violent Crime organizations are available in most large cities to help bury poor victims of homicide. This can help families traumatized by urban violence to focus on remembering their loved one instead of worrying about how they will pay for their loved ones funeral. All local funeral homes have information to assist families who qualify for this service. More funeral planning guides are including information on Grief Counseling.
The Victim Compensation Program (VCP) can help victims and family members of victims of violent crimes. To be eligible for compensation, a person must be a victim of a qualifying crime involving physical injury, threat of physical injury or death. For certain crimes, emotional injury alone is all that needs to be shown. Certain family members or other loved ones who suffer an economic loss resulting from an injury to, or death of, a victim of a crime may also be eligible for compensation.
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We Can All Learn From Michael Jackson
In the wake of Michael Jackson’s death it has given us pause about planning for the inevitable. There has been much ado about his will or lack thereof; as it turns out he had one from 2002. Given all the changes in his personal life over the years, it makes you realize how important it is to update your will as your circumstances change!
You have children born into your family, step-children leave your family; as well as ex-wife’s! It happens more than you think. People divorce and remarry and forget to update their wills and trusts. Guess what? The ex you don’t get along with ends up with all your hard earned assets! Something to think about!
Another important aspect of estate planning, who have you elected as the executor of your estate? Michael Jackson seems to have made an excellent choice in his mother; someone who he loved and trusted unconditionally.
Most of us will never have this much drama dividing up our estate after we die. High profile celebrity deaths bring to the fore all the problems that usually end up in probate court due to lack of planning. If you don’t have a will get one! If you have any assets you have acquired you should look into a trust to protect them so that greedy relatives or the state doesn’t end up with them.
It’s not that hard to do and it doesn’t cost much. The financial heartache that your survivors will suffer if you don’t do this is worth your time. It’s amazing how many people die without a will or trust. It can take years for a probate court to sort it all out. This process can also be very expensive and by the time the court settles your affairs, there may not be much of your estate left.
By all estimates the disposal of Michael Jackson’s assets may take years. It appears his will was out of date. As you can imagine, it will more than likely be contested. People that you haven’t seen or didn’t like all of sudden feel entitled to your assets. Protect yourself - get a will or trust and take care of your estate!
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How Do You Want To Be Remembered?
Funerals are usually the last place you’d expect to learn, let alone have fun and laugh, but that’s exactly what the deceased want to happen at this service.
Romeo Theatre Company students and their director will make a return during the Victorian Festival to make history come alive by holding a Victorian funeral re-enactment.
The performance will be held at noon at the First Congregational Church on Saturday, May 16. Pre-sale tickets are $8 and tickets at the door will be $10. Children’s tickets are $5.
Like last year’s mock wedding, entertainment and education will be used to inform the audience of the superstitions and etiquette of Victorian-era funerals, said Rebecca Couch, coordinator of the performance.
“Everyone from last year kept saying `we need to do a funeral,’ so I looked into it and another event with a lot of ceremony, etiquette and traditions is a funeral,” she said.
The same cast from the wedding re-enactment will revive their roles, including 2008 graduates Justin Kent and Catherine Raffa as the newlyweds, senior Ryan Hake as the minister and director and instructor Kendra Walls as Kent’s mother, Dixie. The service will be for Dixie, who at the couple’s wedding ironically wore black since she believed she was losing her southern son to a northern woman.
“A lot of the humor will come from the families interacting,” Couch said.
While the northern and southern families try to get along for the funeral, the disembodied spirit of Dixie will wander around, commenting on how her own funeral is going.
“Back then, the fear wasn’t of death, but to die and not be properly mourned,” Couch explained. “No costs were spared for funerals then<they even dyed horses black for the processions.”
Some curious traditions audiences members can keep an eye out for are covering mirrors so the deceased spirit doesn’t become trapped in the glass, or stopping clocks at the death hour.
Like modern funerals, a reception with tea and cake will be held following the performance. It won’t be as long as the traditional wake though, which Couch says lasted three to four days.
“The medical field wasn’t as advanced then, so if someone seemed dead they might’ve just been in a coma or unconscious,” she said. “So they held wakes to see if the person would wake up.”
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Don’t Die Broke!
Add more funerals to the list of expenses cities and towns may have to bear in the wake of state budget cuts.
Gov. John Lynch and House lawmakers have proposed eliminating money to pay for the funerals of old people who die broke. The state budgeted $25,000 for the services last year.
If the cut stands, municipalities will have to step in. They’re required to pay funeral expenses — burials or cremation — for those on public assistance. Most towns pay funeral homes between $500 and $750, according to Keith Bates, president of the New Hampshire Local Welfare Administrators Association. Homes have discretion over the bodies and usually choose cremation, which costs far less.
Burials for paying customers cost about $7,300 on average, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. It does not list cremation costs, but New Hampshire directors say those range from $1,000 to $2,800.
Bates said New Hampshire towns have paid indigent funeral expenses for two centuries. He’s the welfare director in Portsmouth, which has paid for 23 since 2001.
“For the most part we’re talking about people who die with no identifiable relatives in subsidized housing,” he said. “We’re talking about a real small sum of money.”
The state traditionally has paid for funerals for seniors enrolled in two public assistance programs, but the budget crunch has legislators and the governor proposing cuts that would have been unthinkable in other years.
“The budget savings that we offered up were in programs that had less egregious an impact on people we serve,” Terry Smith, director of the state Division of Family Assistance, said in an e-mail.
His office has paid for 53 funerals over the last two years.
Janet Poulin, human services director in Dover, said she can handle more cases.
“I usually do between two and four every year,” Poulin said. “It’s not a huge number.”
Local funeral homes also sacrifice.
“If they do it for $750 they definitely take a bit of a loss on that,” Bates said.
They might do better in New Jersey. Peter Morin, executive director of the New Hampshire Funeral Directors Association, said the government paid $2,400 for indigent funerals when he practiced there in the late 1990s.
But Daniel Stockbridge, a funeral director in Epping, doesn’t mind giving the occasional discount.
“We’re here to help in time of need,” he said.
So are the towns, when the time comes for a final resting place. Morin said many towns reserve cemetery space for indigents’ remains.
Cynthia Rogers, director of Emmons Funeral Home in Bristol, said the process is sometimes the only option.
“We’re in a service industry,” she said. “It would be the same as a doctor refusing treatment to a patient who needed it.”
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Not All Funeral Homes Are Bad
All too often we hear or read about unscrupulous funeral homes taking advantage of families in their time of need. It’s nice to hear about funeral homes who are doing the right thing and going the extra mile for families. The following is a case in point.
Farmer & Son Funeral Home noted for service
The Farmer & Son Funeral Home of Geneva has been recognized as the Gold Exemplary Award winner by the International Order of the Golden Rule, a professional association of local, family-owned and operated Golden Rule funeral homes. The funeral home will be honored this April during the association’s annual conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
Winners of the 2008 Exemplary Service Awards were determined by comments submitted by families that had used the firm’s services during the past year. A member committee made the final judgments.
“We are extremely proud to have been chosen from among so many of our colleagues who work hard to provide the utmost in service to families,” said Paul Farmer, owner of Farmer & Son Funeral Home. “Nothing gives me and our entire staff greater pleasure than knowing we have done our absolute best for families at a very difficult time. We will continue to honor the memories of all whom we have served by adhering to the Golden Rule standards of excellence.”
“Members chosen for this prestigious award represent the highest in service excellence,” said Guy Linnemann, president of the association’s board of directors. “We are proud to pay tribute to Farmer & Son Funeral Home as an Exemplary Service Award winner. We want every family in the community to know and appreciate the caring, compassionate service this excellent funeral home consistently provides.”
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