Funeral Services | Cremation | Funeral Planning

Utah Insurance License Number: 88816 Pre-Need Sales Agent Number: 325672-5802
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This agency only works with local, privately-owned funeral homes. This means you will be dealing with a trusted member of your community, not some distant corporation only worried about a bottom line.

How You Can Take TOTAL CONTROL of Future Funeral Costs

How to Make Sure You Don't Pay the Illusory "National Average"

The long-time host of "Jeopardy" is the pitch man for Colonial Penn's Final Expense insurance. "If you are between the ages of 50 and 85," you can get guaranteed acceptance life insurance. This type of final expense whole life insurance is available on the same terms from many insurance companies, including MetLife, Humana, National Guardian Life, Sentinel Life, and other companies. The best features of these insurance plans are the guaranteed acceptance (regardless of health) and reasonable cost. These plans also are whole life plans that build cash value and are not "term life" policies. Term life policies are not good for senior citizens for various reasons. See my page Which Plans Are Best for Seniors? Final expense whole life plans build cash value tax-free. You make a payment monthly for the rest of your life. I have these plans available through National Guardian Life (click here for brochure), but I much prefer to offer NGL's Funeral Expense Trust. I will explain why. In most cases, a "limited pay whole life" plan is better, which has a maximum payment plan of ten years. The Funeral Expense Trust falls into this category, and it can be used to freeze most of your costs.

Don't Be Duped Into Believing You Must Pay the "National Average" of $7,000 or More. It's An Illusion Created by the Funeral Industry.

But first, where does Alex Trebek get this figure of $7.000? You hear such numbers quoted in similar TV and radio commercials. Where does the number come from? It comes from the National Funeral Directors Association's Annual Surveys. It is an accurate figure. But what does it represent? It is a correct figure, but it factors in all the OVER-PRICED funeral homes. What this means to you is that $7,000 is how much most people are paying, but it doesn't have to include you. The life insurance companies have no control over how the funeral industry prices things, so they just give you the facts and tell you which insurance plans they have will pay for it. You, however, have CONTROL. You can decide not to pay $7,000, the average cost of a full traditional funeral service with a casket. I can get you the same, for example, through Premier Funeral Services, for under $3,000 (Click here to learn more). Most people don't know how to find the best value for their money. Now you do. One way big name funeral homes get more of your money is through expensive advertising the smaller funeral service providers can't afford. Smaller, privately owned funeral service providers rely on "word of mouth" and Internet Google searches for their new business, and sometimes the Yellow Pages.

You can choose a better alternative than the advertised "average." You have a choice, and I help you have control of the costs. The Guaranteed Acceptance Whole Life policies have certain drawbacks. I would offer them primarily if I didn't have the National Guardian Life Funeral Expense Trust. I'll explain the difference. Most of the whole life policies offered by Colonial Penn and many others have a fixed death benefit which does not increase. As long as the death benefit amount is large enough, you'll do okay. I talk to many senior citizens who are paying, for example, $50 a month for the rest of their lives to get $10,000 when they die to be paid to the funeral home. If they live 20 years, they pay $12,000 in premiums. And if they choose the wrong funeral home, that $10,000 fixed death benefit may or may not pay for everything.

With the National Guardian Life Funeral Expense Trust, I can freeze your funeral costs with a payment plan that will only be for ten years maximum that will cover everything. Below is a table that shows a $5,000 plan with most costs frozen at various ages. (Click here for an explanation of "freezing" costs).

This plan offers the same insurance as a whole life plan, except it will cost you much less. Why is this so? I can freeze the cost of a funeral service, casket, and a burial vault (if needed) for between $2,900 and $3,785. This means you have money left over and an increasing cash value for the rest of your life. That is, your death benefit continues to increase endlessly tax-free. The whole life plans, on the other hand, pay one fixed death benefit that never changes and you must pay for the rest of your life or you lose the plan. I can offer both types of plans, but I know that the NGL Funeral Expense Trust is a better plan when combined with a guarantee contract that freezes your costs. Funeral homes offer insurance plans to freeze most of your costs that you pay for a maximum of ten years. These are referred to as "limited pay whole life policies." When you have made ten years' worth of payments or you pass away, whichever comes first, no more payments are due. The insurance covers the balance if you die before ten years are up. In serious, bad health cases, you have to wait up to two years for full insurance benefits. With the NGL FET, with serious health cases, year one offers no insurance, year two 70%, and full insurance thereafter. This is typical of limited pay whole life plans, as well as whole life plans if you have had serious health problems. But, as I've written about on other pages of this site, too many of these ten-year limited pay plans can easily cost you in the neighborhood of $15,000 total of payments if you choose the wrong one. My ten-year plans won't even cost you $4,000-$7,000 maximum total of payments.

So, there are at least two ways you can over-pay with a final expense whole life policy. 1) You pay for a funeral on a whole life plan with the expectation of using an expensive funeral home. 2) You live too long (20 years) and your total premiums are more than the death benefit.

With the NGL Funeral Expense Trust, at age 65 with a $5,000 plan, the longest you would make payments is ten years, for a total of $6,798. And the NGL FET comes with an Early Payoff Option. There is no such thing with whole life plans. With whole life plans, you are stuck with a payment for the rest of your life, no matter what. With the Funeral Expense Trust, you can pay the plan off early, freeze 75% of your costs with an affordable funeral home, and pay much less. If I thought there was a better funeral funding option, I would offer it. But there isn't. And if you have the money now for your funeral and don't need any insurance, the single payment plan is for you. Leaving your money in the bank will do you no good toward controlling your costs. Making one payment not only offers you a discount, which immediately gives a return on investment, the death benefit grows for the rest of your life tax-free. The Funeral Expense Trust by NGL is THE BEST PARKING PLACE for your funeral money if you have enough cash to pay for it now.

To simply say "we have enough insurance to cover it" can be foolish, unless you have estate money you're willing to waste. When someone says they have enough to cover it, what they really mean is "we have enough to overspend and don't care what other burdens we leave." Whether or not you have enough money or insurance to cover it is not the issue. After all, even rich people like to get high quality at the best cost and not get "taken." And no one should leave vague, incomplete instructions when they had the power to do otherwise.

Some people have told me over the years "we don't believe in pre-paying." There are many possible reasons. One could be that they know someone who paid way too much for what they ended up getting. But there are many other reasons people feel this way. Most of these go back to "horror stories" of decades past, before the laws became strict, where people lost everything they invested in a plan when a funeral home got into financial trouble. Other reasons include knowing of a friend or family member who thought "everything was paid for" in a plan, only to learn they had to fork over a lot more money at the time of need.

By following the right steps, you can know with a great deal of certainty that you have looked at all the angles.

"You're not charging my family $7,000.00 for a funeral at our church!"

A majority of funeral homes are getting away with this--a traditional funeral service (with viewing) with a casket-even if you use your church, for $6,000.00-$8,000.00+. Don't put up with it. Learn what you need to know.

The bottom line is how to not overspend on funerals, without sacrificing any quality of either service or merchandise. You can reduce the cost of a funeral with just about any funeral home you have in mind, using what's on this Web site. But you can do even better if you know which funeral service providers will give you a big discount for using your church or other facility of your choosing and which are clearly over-priced.

I have set up over 220 plans in the past four years that pay for a full traditional service with casket included for around $3,000.00-half of what most funeral homes charge. You use your church, a reception center, a lodge, the graveside, or some other location you arrange. No sacrifices! Just a better plan for your money.

All plans are guaranteed portable, including cash value growth as long as you're alive. Even though you may have designed your plan around the prices of one particular funeral home, the funds can be used at another that charges similarly or less so you get the same result if your plans change. In any case, your money is never stuck with a funeral home where you have to pay a penalty for withdrawing that money. You don't have to worry about getting any money back from a funeral home, because your money is safely deposited with a large insurance company.

Your money stays safely deposited with a large life insurance company until you pass away, a company in business since 1909. www.nglic.com. You can change whom you want to use for a funeral at any time. We have 1-3-5-7-10 year plans, with full insurance coverage should something happen before you make all the payments, and always a discount for making a single payment or paying off your plan early. And always with growing cash value tax-free.

NGL is No. 92 of all insurers in the U.S. Read Report.

Our average ten-year plan at most ages is around $33.00 a month. Compare that to what other funeral homes you may have had in mind can offer you. The average funeral plan in the Salt Lake area on a ten-year plan is around $80.00 per month per person.

Let me show you in detail in your home how to outline your final wishes and preferences in the best way possible. Let me show you the best plan for your money.

The following table shows you what Salt Lake area facilities are charging for traditional funeral services at a church or mortuary chapel, graveside, or cremation only with no services. There are other possibilities, but these are the three main categories.

(CH) means the company is part of a chain and (P) means it is privately-owned.

NEW! Updated Funeral Home Survey 2016:

(These packages are WITHOUT a casket, burial vault, obituary, grave opening, etc. This is for a full traditional funeral service only. Read the book for details on what these packages usually include).

Funeral homes don't do these types of surveys and show them to prospective customers. I do. So should you.

And one important point: If you own plots at a facility that has a funeral home, you are not required to use them for your funeral.

Utah's Best Funeral Value:

I don't need your Social Security number. There is a major funeral funding company based in the Salt Lake area that owns many mortuaries and cemeteries that insists on getting your Social Security number when you set up a plan with them. Don't fall for this. That number is only needed for a death certificate, not for a funeral or burial plan. National Guardian Life does NOT require your Social Security number. Turn down any plan that does.

Get professional, personalized service at the right price, on the best terms.

UtahsFuneralPlanningSite.com serves the funeral and funeral planning market in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. Our goal is to help you plan a funeral in as much detail as possible well in advance. This website provides the tools you need to pay for funerals the right way, so affordable funerals don�t end up being a sacrifice but instead a more comfortable reality. We offer or point you to Utah's best funeral prices and lowest cost for funeral plans, which can include caskets and burial vaults, and final expense whole life insurance, especially for seniors with bad health and with low incomes. You will be able to not only outline your final wishes with accuracy, but you will know exactly how to calculate and control the cost of a funeral (church, mortuary chapel, or graveside), the cost of a burial, and, if applicable, cremation options. You will not become the victim of funeral rip-offs, over-priced caskets, or plans that don�t suit your family�s true needs and budget. There will be no confusion in your family at the time of need concerning arrangements. Once you have done things correctly, they will know where the line has been drawn on spending for your final expenses, and no mistakes will be made.