Compare Your Funeral Plan seeks to address concerns from regulator that people cannot easily compare funeral prices
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently shelved plans to cap funeral prices, citing the move as infeasible given the recent impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
This is despite finding that customers are overpaying by up to £400 for a funeral and that costs are spiralling way above inflation, with prices rising as much as 9% in a year in some regions.
To address CMA concerns that people are struggling to arrange funerals after a bereavement because of ‘a lack of easily comparable information on directors' services', Leeds firm Compare Your Funeral Plan has been launched.
The comparison site allows customers to take out plans for any length of time up to 25 years and request their money back at any point. It also claims to offer free bereavement support.
According to Compare Your Funeral Plan research, only one in three people surveyed were aware of the approximate cost of a funeral and only one in four had made a provision of their own.
Compare Your Funeral Plan director, Craig Wilson said: "People are often overwhelmed by the repercussions of bereavement and arranging funerals can be challenging. Losing a loved one is already an enormous emotional strain, without the added burden of worrying about money too. Our aim is to make it easy to compare and select the funeral our customers would like, and allow them to pay for it in advance, at today's prices, so the weight is lifted from those that are left behind."
The average cost of a funeral in the UK is £4,417, with the average burial coming in at £4,975 and a typical cremation costing £3,858.
Covering the cost of funeral plans has become increasingly problematic in light of the financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis on families in the UK.
