[Anthony Belcher]

Hi Steve,

From what we’re seeing at head office the vast majority of members we’ve spoken to have come away from offering pre-paid funeral plans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same goes for those we haven’t spoken to.

I think Paul’s hit the nail on the head above really. Their benefit is indeed in unburdening the family of arranging things and stumping up the cost at the time of need. I don’t mind saying when we had to organise my dad’s funeral the cost for an at-need service was more than equivalent plans available at the time, and I think it was also far more difficult to deal with emotionally than had he arranged things whilst he was with us. I’d say it’s still worth recommending them to clients as part of their overall estate planning, but they’ll have to go direct to the providers instead.

I would say for members going forwards any involvement in pre-paid funeral plans will need to be carefully thought about, and, will mean seeking to become an appointed representative of the principal firm of your choosing. I can’t see any members going for direct authorisation, if applications are even open, and when we spoke with the FCA about this they advised against it anyway. Under the AR route, there may be more requirements to offer this as a service than there were before, potentially even fees to pay to the firm, and of course there are no more financial incentives for the introducer in return. There’s also the possibility that becoming an AR won’t even be an option as some firms may not even be looking to take them on, and right now we don’t have any indication of which firms are/will be opening up this avenue.

We’ll keep following it with interest though, likely to be plenty more information to come as things progress under their regulation.

[Author]

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