Planning Ahead

Do you like the security of knowing your funeral will be carried out according to your wishes? The thought of taking away the worry of funeral expenses being left for your family to meet at the time of your death? A Pre-arranged Funeral Plan provides you with the comfort of knowing your needs will be covered.

Over the years there has been a steady increase in people securing a Funeral Contract or Funeral Bond as they ease into retirement.

At Patterson Brothers we are able to assist you in setting up a Funeral Plan to not only suite your personal requests for your funeral, but also work to a budget you have in mind to meet the costs.

Please call our office to make an appointment to meet with you, to begin the first stage of tailoring your funeral needs and wishes in a contract and giving you a quote for the expenses involved.

You may wish to have one contract in Mr or Mrs name, and take out a further contract after the first one is claimed by the funeral director following the death of you or your partner.

The other option is to take out two contracts for yourself and your partner.

Once you have approved our quotation for the expenses for your funeral, we will draw up the contract in triplicate: one for your file, one for ours and one for Funeral Plan Management.

Travel Protection Clause

You may also like to include a Travel Protection clause in your Pre Arranged Contract to ensure you can be transferred to where you intend to have your funeral. This will cover you should you die whilst on holiday for instance, however it will not cover if you were on an overseas holiday. The Travel Protection is $125.00 for the first person and $75.00 for the second if you were taking out a joint contract.

You are given the option of paying in one lump sum or a sizable amount as a deposit and the rest by instalments of an amount affordable to you and satisfactory to the company. Instalments can be paid by direct debit at fortnightly, monthly, quarterly etc

It should be noted that by paying by instalment, you are not covered for the full amount of your contract should you suddenly die; you would only covered for the amount you have paid to date.

Funeral Bonds

Should you wish to be buried in a lawn cemetery or monumental cemetery, we would suggest you consider taking out a Funeral Bond to cover the ever increasing costs by the various councils and cemetery trusts as their annual rise in fees can be quite high.

The Bond can be taken out at the same time as the Funeral Contract. You can pay a lump sum at the time of setting up the Funeral Bond or you may choose to pay by instalment. Most funeral bond companies would require a sum of at least $500.00 to begin with and you would then nominate an amount, say $50.00 to be paid into the bond at a fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or half yearly rate, until you are happy with the amount you have put into the Bond.

We can advise you regarding the current cemetery fees are in your area. This will give a starting point from which to work to cover the costs when needed. Your money is secured with Life Plan Management Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Life Plan Australia Friendly Society Limited.The interest gained on your investment over a twelve month period is reinvested into your Bond. For more information see www.fpmanagement.com.au