One thing is for sure: up until my mom Rose passed away in fall of 2020, I thought she was the most prepared and organized person I had ever known. I guess it was my fault though, with having my own kids, husband and career, I just didn’t see or talk to my mom very much. It didn’t help that we lived three hours apart.

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When Mom passed away very unexpectedly, I very much remember the day. It was cool outside, but the sun was shining just a bit to make it so that it wasn’t too cold, and it felt nice. Then I got a call from Mom’s neighbor, Jim. Mom and Jim would usually see each other every day or so to say hi from the backyard. Jim called because he hadn’t seen Mom in about two days. When he knocked on the door no one answered. He saw Mom laying on the kitchen floor and called the ambulance. Come to find out, Mom had had a sudden heart attack and passed away.

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Sadly, this is when I had to start taking care of Mom’s funeral arrangements. This is also when I found out Mom wasn’t prepared. I guess she just thought she would take care of it later because she was in decent health and felt fine. I found out that without some kind of burial insurance or final expense insurance, I was going to be responsible for the entire funeral. The cost was going to be over $8,000. I thought this was absurd and highway robbery of some sort.

 

I was so appalled I contacted the National Funeral Directors Association, and this is what I found out - "The national median cost of a funeral with viewing and burial for calendar year 2019 was $7,640. This cost does not take into account cemetery, monument, or marker costs or miscellaneous cash-advance charges, such as for flowers or an obituary."*

 

I didn’t have $8,000 laying around, I had my own bills and my own heartaches.

 

Mom did end up with a very nice funeral. We had a celebration of life, we cried, and we told stories about Mom. I now have $8,000 in credit card debt, but I guess that is life sometimes.

 

Once the mourning had slowed and time had passed, I decided I needed to do a bit of research on burial insurance, or what they call final expense insurance. There were so many plans and prices to choose from, I was utterly confused. After all my research, I settled with Option 1st Life because they offered free information and they had access to all the plans and prices available from every burial insurance company in America. They were able to get me a plan that was within my budget and one I could qualify for.

 

If only Mom had known about this before she passed, things would have been a bit easier for me. 

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Click Here To Get Free Burial Insurance Information and Pricing.

 

* NFDA 2019 General Price List Survey. National Funeral Directors Association.