Q: What things should I consider in choosing a funeral provider?
A: The use of a funeral provider to plan and conduct a funeral is not a legal requirement. Comparison of prices and services of more than one funeral provider helps you in determining costs and quality of available services. Comparison enables you to select a provider to best meet your family's emotional, spiritual, cultural and economic needs.
Q: Why do people choose to prearrange their Funeral Arrangements?
A: Most notably, individuals prearrange their end-of-life event because of their love of family and for their peace of mind. Funerals can quickly become a significant expense for consumers. Putting one's affairs in order, prearrangement and prepayment of final need events are becoming more common. Prearrangement allows you the opportunity to compare prices and has services so that ultimately, your choices reflect a wise and well-informed purchasing decision, as well as a meaningful one. It can provide you with the peace of mind that everything is taken care of relieving your family of the emotional and financial burden that often comes with making arrangements when a loved one passes away.
Q: What If I have prearranged a funeral plan and funded it in advance, but now want to move or want to use another funeral provider, what happens?
A: Pre-funded funeral services are usually fully transferable; however, if you pre-funded a funeral arrangement with a funeral provider that offered you cost guarantee, there is no guarantee that the new funeral provider will honor all costs as stipulated on the prearranged contract. By making arrangements and funding your funeral in advance, you were able to express your own wishes and relieve this financial burden from your family. Usually, these arrangements can be reestablished with another funeral home and nearly all funding vehicles are transferable by the owner.
Q: What is meant by personalization?
A: In the truest sense, a personalized tribute ceremony is designed to reflect the life of your loved one. The commemoration may include special items reflective of your loved one's talents, life style, accomplishments, or those things that are held dear to their values that demonstrate the uniqueness of who they are. Personalization can be achieved by incorporating a well-loved piece of music, family photos, mementos, special readings, accomplishments, hobbies or activities that characterized their unique qualities, and articles from a personal collection, or even a favorite food. Many have found that when ideals, passions, or concepts that represent the person are incorporated within the tribute, they make for a most effective impact at its presentation, even if the tribute is of the simplest in design. From simple to elaborate, the possibilities for sharing special memories are unlimited. By remembering the qualities that made your loved one so unique, you create homage of their life, and by sharing through the involvement of family members and friends, you celebrate their life.
Q: What is the significance of a memorial tribute?
A: A memorial tribute is an important ritual that provides family and friends the opportunity to gather together to provide emotional and social support and comfort in mutual bereavement. The tribute or ceremony is part of the mourning process that is universal to all whom experience a loss. A tribute event publically held is a social setting wherein the bereaved demonstrates openly that one of its members has died. The wider community responds with sympathy to the occasion and support for the bereaved. The ritual enacts the passing of your loved one by expressing, through metaphor and symbol, how you perceive death. Therefore a ritual grants your family and friends a time to support each other, to share memories, and an opportunity for them to celebrate your life or the life of another, and to come into alignment with the separation. Assembling as a community reassures us that we are part of a larger whole, thereby strengthening our individual lives.
Keep in mind that a tribute can occur almost anywhere and at any time. For some, the setting would be as is endorsed via their religious, cultural, or ethic perception, while others choose to hold the event at an indoor or outdoor location, and yet still others choose to hold only an informal event. You choose the option that best reflects your beliefs and the life or interests of your loved one.
Keep in mind that a tribute can occur almost anywhere and at any time. For some, the setting would be as is endorsed via their religious, cultural, or ethic perception, while others choose to hold the event at an indoor or outdoor location, and yet still others choose to hold only an informal event. You choose the option that best reflects your beliefs and the life or interests of your loved one.
Q: What is the Basic Service Fee?
A: The Basic Service Fee is the only non-declinable fee that funeral providers are legally allowed to charge to reimburse them for professional services they provide consumers that are common to all types of services and is added to the total cost of the funeral arrangement. It may include such items as the funeral director's time spent in conduction of an arrangement conference and the processing of paperwork involved in the planning and coordination of a tribute event or other requested services. This fee may also cover overhead items such as advertising, insurance, taxes, rent, parking, upkeep of the facilities, etc. The funeral provider may require you to pay this fee along with any services and funeral goods you select. The included items vary with each funeral provider; therefore, it is wise to ask for an itemization of covered items.
Q: What is an Immediate Burial?
A: An immediate burial is a disposition of the deceased by burial without a formal viewing, visitation, or ceremony with the body present. The burial may be followed by a gathering for a tribute at a future date. This type of service does not require embalming.
Q: What is a Direct Cremation?
A: Direct cremation is a disposition of human remains by cremation, without any formal viewing of the remains, or any visitation, or ceremony with the body present. There may be a memorial tribute sometime in the future after the cremation has occurred.
Q: What do the terms "Traditional" or "Full-Service" funeral ceremony mean?
A: The terms "Traditional" or "Full-Service" are industry terms that describe a type of funeral ceremony that usually includes a viewing or visitation, possibly a vigil or wake, a formal funeral service, a hearse led procession to the place of service and to a cemetery for burial. It may also include embalming, dressing of the body, rental of a facility, and rental of vehicles such as a limousine, and flower car. This type of funeral is generally the most expensive you can choose. It is a service commemorating the deceased with the body present.
Q: Do I need to purchase a casket for cremation?
A: No, a casket is not required by law however, A combustible cremation container, typically referred to as an alternative container, is required. Alternative containers encase the body and can be made of materials like fiberboard or composition materials. A casket can be the single most expensive item you will buy when you purchase a traditional full-service funeral. The Funeral Rule requires funeral providers to agree to use a casket you purchase elsewhere and without any additional fee. Under the Funeral Rule, funeral providers who offer direct cremations must disclose in writing your right to buy an alternative container for direct cremation and must make them available to you.
Q: Can Life Insurance pay for the funeral?
A: Life insurance can pay for the funeral, you assign the benefits over to the funeral provider, in part or in full, and then the funeral provider returns the balance to you. It is important to note that the funeral provider you select will determine by their best business practice if they will accept insurance as payment, and they may charge a processing fee to file the claim.
Q: Am I required to purchase a grave liner or vault for burial?
A: You are not legally required to purchase a grave liner or vault, and a funeral provider may not tell you otherwise, unless a state or local law requires it. However many cemeteries make it a requirement to have some type of grave liner to help keep the ground from settling after interment because caskets deteriorate over time. Usually a grave liner will cover only the top and sides of a casket and a burial vault will surround the casket in concrete or another material. Because a vault encases the casket entirely, it is usually much more expensive than the grave liner.
Q: What is the Funeral Rule?
A: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Funeral Rule went into effect on April 30, 1984, to give consumers protections from misrepresentations, unfair practices or deceptive acts by funeral providers as well as provide consumers with accurate, itemized price information, and various other disclosures about funeral goods and services.
Q: Can I get Funeral Information over the phone?
A: Yes, funeral providers must give consumers who telephone for price information and offerings, with readily available information that reasonably answers their questions. We strongly encourage you to compare funeral homes, cemeteries, casket providers and crematoriums. Furthermore funeral providers cannot require you to give your name, address, or telephone number before you give them the requested information.
Q: WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CREMATED REMAINS?
A: There are many options to consider with a cremation. In California, you may choose any of the following methods of disposition of cremated remains:
- Placement in a columbarium or mausoleum - There may be additional charges for endowment care, opening or closing, recording, flower vase, and nameplate.
- Burial in a plot in a cemetery - There may be additional charges for endowment care, opening or closing, recording, outer burial container, flower vase, and marker.
- Retention at a residence - The funeral establishment or crematory will have you sign a Permit for Disposition showing that the remains were released to you and will file it with the local registrar of births and deaths. You may not remove the cremated remains from the container and you must arrange for their disposition upon your death.
- Storing in a house of worship or religious shrine if local zoning laws allow.
- Scattering in areas of the State where no local prohibition exists and with written permission of the property owner or governing agency. The cremated remains must be removed from the container and scattered in a manner so they are not distinguishable to the public.
- Scattering in a cemetery scattering garden.
- Scattering at sea, at least 500 yards from shore. This also includes inland navigable waters, except for lakes and streams.
Scattering
Cremated remains may be scattered as described above by employees at a licensed cemetery, cemetery brokers, crematory employees, registered cremated remains disposers, funeral establishment staff members, or the decedent's family. All cremated remains must be removed from the container for scattering, with the exception of those remains placed into a scattering urn for scattering cremated remains at sea from a boat.
Scattering may also be done by any person having the right to control the disposition of the cremated remains of any person or that person's designee if the person does not dispose of or offer to dispose of more than ten cremated remains within any calendar year.
When scattering remains, you should avoid inhaling the dust from the remains, since there may be health risks. The county health department must issue a Permit for Disposition, and boat/aircraft operators must notify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after scattering.
State law requires cremated remains disposers who scatter by air or boat to post copies of their current pilot or boating licenses and the addresses of their cremated remains storage areas at their place of business. The law also requires disposers to conduct scatterings within 60 days of receiving the remains, unless the person with the right to control disposition is notified in writing of the reason for the delay.
Cremated remains may be scattered as described above by employees at a licensed cemetery, cemetery brokers, crematory employees, registered cremated remains disposers, funeral establishment staff members, or the decedent's family. All cremated remains must be removed from the container for scattering, with the exception of those remains placed into a scattering urn for scattering cremated remains at sea from a boat.
Scattering may also be done by any person having the right to control the disposition of the cremated remains of any person or that person's designee if the person does not dispose of or offer to dispose of more than ten cremated remains within any calendar year.
When scattering remains, you should avoid inhaling the dust from the remains, since there may be health risks. The county health department must issue a Permit for Disposition, and boat/aircraft operators must notify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after scattering.
State law requires cremated remains disposers who scatter by air or boat to post copies of their current pilot or boating licenses and the addresses of their cremated remains storage areas at their place of business. The law also requires disposers to conduct scatterings within 60 days of receiving the remains, unless the person with the right to control disposition is notified in writing of the reason for the delay.