Help with funeral costs

Start here: the estate itself

Before any benefit claim, two things:

The bank will often pay. Most UK banks and building societies release money from the deceased’s account directly to a funeral director’s invoice, before probate and while the account is otherwise frozen. You take in the invoice and a death certificate. This is standard practice and it is the reason a great many funeral loans never needed to exist.

Look for insurance and plans. A pre-paid funeral plan, an over-50s life policy, a workplace death-in-service benefit — often three or four times salary and paid quickly — a trade union or professional association benefit, or a credit card with life cover attached. Employers in particular pay out far more often and far faster than families expect.

State help, by nation

Funeral Expenses Payment — England, Wales, Northern Ireland

For people receiving a qualifying benefit: Universal Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit (disability element).

It pays:

• burial or cremation fees in full, including the cost of the plot for a burial;
• certain travel costs, and the cost of the death certificates;
• a capped contribution towards everything else — the funeral director’s fee, the coffin, the flowers.

That cap is the catch. It has not tracked funeral inflation, and it will meet a good part of a simple funeral and a small fraction of a conventional one.

Deadline: six months from the funeral. You do not need to have paid the bill first, and you can claim before the funeral if you already have the estimate.

Funeral Support Payment — Scotland

Administered by Social Security Scotland, on similar eligibility. It covers burial or cremation costs, some travel, and a flat-rate contribution towards other expenses which is uprated each year — check mygov.scot for the current figure rather than trusting any number you read elsewhere.

It is generally easier to apply for than the DWP equivalent, and it can be claimed from the date of death rather than only once the funeral has happened. Deadline: six months from the funeral.

Children’s Funeral Fund — UK-wide

Where the person who died was under 18, or in the case of a stillbirth after 24 weeks: burial and cremation fees are met in full, with no means test anywhere in the UK, plus a contribution towards a coffin.

England runs it as the Children’s Funeral Fund. In Wales, local authorities do not charge for children’s burials or cremations at all. Scotland and Northern Ireland have equivalent arrangements.

The funeral director claims it. You should not receive an invoice for those fees, and if you do, query it immediately.

Bereavement Support Payment — UK-wide

For a surviving spouse, civil partner, or cohabiting partner with dependent children (extended to cohabitees in February 2023), where the person who died was under State Pension age and had paid enough National Insurance.

A first lump sum, then monthly payments for up to 18 months. Two rates: a higher one if you are pregnant or entitled to Child Benefit, a standard one otherwise.

Deadline: claim within three months of the death for the full amount. You can claim up to 21 months afterwards but you lose the earlier monthly payments. It is tax-free and is ignored for other benefits for the first year.

Public health funerals

Where nobody is able or willing to arrange a funeral, the local authority has a legal duty to do so. It is a simple cremation or burial, usually with a short service, arranged with a funeral director the council contracts with.

Two things families are rarely told: you may usually attend, and you can ask to be told the date and to bring flowers. And the council may seek to recover the cost from the estate, but not from relatives personally — arranging a public health funeral does not make anyone liable for the bill.

It carries an old stigma it does not deserve. It is a lawful, respectful funeral, and choosing it over a debt you cannot service is a reasonable decision, not a failure.

Charitable and other help

• Trade unions and professional associations frequently have hardship or death benefits.
• The armed forces — Veterans UK, the Royal British Legion, SSAFA and regimental associations all help with funerals for veterans and their families.
• Occupational charities exist for a surprising number of trades: seafarers, railway workers, licensed trade, agriculture, the print, teaching.
• Turn2us maintains a searchable database of grant-giving charities, and it is worth half an hour.
• Some crematoria and funeral directors run reduced-cost simple funeral schemes. Ask, in those words, at the arrangement meeting.

Avoid, if you can

Funeral loans and pay-later plans arranged in the arrangement meeting. Interest rates are frequently high, the decision is made in the worst week of your life, and it is very often the case that a cheaper funeral, the bank releasing the deceased’s own money, or a claim nobody mentioned would have removed the need entirely.

Direct cremation costs a quarter of an attended funeral, and the gathering you hold afterwards can be whatever you want. There is no version of this where going into debt is the respectful option.

Related

What a funeral costs · Choosing a funeral director · Probate and paperwork