Funeral Arranger at Memoria Funerals
Funeral Plan Consultant at Memoria Funerals
If you have been looking into funeral plans, you may have questions about how they actually work before parting with your cash. What you are paying for, where the money is kept and what happens if your circumstances change are all reasonable things to want answered before you make a decision.
If you are earlier in the process and still working out what kind of funeral you would like, start with our guide to planning your own funeral in advance.
A funeral plan is an agreement between you and a funeral provider. You decide the kind of funeral you would like in the future and pay for it now, and in return the provider commits to carrying out that funeral when the time comes, at the price you agreed, regardless of how much funeral costs have risen in the meantime.
It is worth being clear that a plan is not a savings account or a life insurance policy, because it does not pay out a sum of money when it is needed. What it delivers is the funeral itself.
Victoria Jackson, Product, Proposition and Partnership Manager at Memoria Funerals, has worked in the funeral industry for more than a decade and witnessed the benefits of putting a plan in place.
“Bereaved families say how much easier it was because their loved one had a plan, that they were able to grieve instead of worry about arrangements.”
Every plan is built around a particular type of funeral, so you can choose the type that suits you best.
With Memoria Funerals, that means choosing between a direct cremation with no service, a personal funeral with a short service for close family and friends, or a celebration of life with a full service at a time that suits everyone.
If you are not sure which would suit you, our guide to the different types of funeral explains each one.
Whichever you choose, the plan summary sets out every item the price covers, and that list is effectively the agreement between you and the provider.
You pay for it. You can pay in a single payment or spread the cost over monthly instalments.
Your money is protected. The money does not sit in the provider’s own bank account. By law it has to be placed in an insurance policy or an independent trust, where it is held safely until it is needed.
Your loved ones use it when the time comes. They make a single phone call to the provider, who confirms the plan and takes care of everything in it.
This is the area where plans vary most between providers, so it is worth paying close attention to what you are getting. A plan guarantees the services that are written into it, and only those services, which is why the plan summary matters more than the headline price.
With any provider, there are some things that generally sit outside a plan, such as flowers, venue and catering for a gathering or memorial afterwards and printed orders of service. These are additional costs that would need to be considered separately from the funeral plan.
One phrase worth looking out for when you compare providers is whether a cost is “included” or whether the plan only “contributes towards” it. A contribution is a fixed amount, so if the real cost turns out to be higher when the plan is used, the difference would need to be paid at the time of the funeral.
You can pay for a funeral plan in one payment or spread the cost over instalments. If you pay the whole amount when you set the plan up, there will be nothing further to pay.
If you would prefer to spread the cost, many providers offer instalments over a number of months, but keep in mind the total you pay is a little higher than the single payment price. That is because every plan carries a fixed charge for administering it, and that charge is higher when there are multiple payments to process rather than one. Our guide to how much a funeral plan costs looks at what drives the price and what you should expect to be included.
As an example, at Memoria Funerals the Direct Cremation Plan costs £1,595 when paid in full, and the five-year instalment total is £1,962.35. So the final cost is a little higher, but for some people being able to spread the cost makes it easier to fit the payments into their budget.
Providers also set their own rules on who can pay by instalments, usually based on age. At Memoria Funerals, instalments are available if you are between 40 and 79 when you take out the plan, since it needs to be paid in full before your 85th birthday. If you are aged between 80 and 99 you can still buy a plan as a single payment. The details are on our instalments page.
Since 29 July 2022, every company selling prepaid funeral plans in the UK has had to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. One of the conditions of that authorisation is that plan money cannot be kept in the provider’s own accounts, and instead has to be placed in an independent trust or an insurance policy so that it is still there when it is needed, whatever happens to the provider in the meantime.
With Memoria Funerals, the money you pay is used to buy a whole of life insurance policy with our chosen insurer. The policy is arranged so that Memoria Funerals receives the payout when the plan is needed and uses it to deliver your funeral, which means that until then your money is held by a regulated insurer, separate from Memoria Funeral’s day-to-day business.
When you buy your plan from Memoria Funeral Plans Limited you have the added reassurance that we are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and all plans are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Memoria Funerals is a trading name of Memoria Funeral Plans Limited and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. View details on the Financial Services Register with firm reference (FRN) 965287.
The FSCS protects you if an authorised provider goes out of business. The scheme makes sure your funeral still goes ahead or your money is returned to you. You can check whether any provider is authorised by searching the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk.
FCA authorisation is the first thing to check, but it is not the only sign of a provider you can rely on. Our guide to how to know if you can trust a funeral provider covers the other questions worth asking before you buy.
Want to talk it through?
Call Memoria Funerals free on 0800 007 3620. Our experienced team can discuss what is right for you, with no pressure to buy.
When you take out a plan, most providers will ask you to name someone who will hold the plan documents and make the call when the time comes, sometimes known as a Nominated Representative.
It is usually your next of kin, but it can be anyone you trust, and naming someone is the simplest way to avoid the most common problem with funeral plans, which is not that the wrong plan was chosen but that nobody knew a plan existed.
When the time comes, that person or any member of your family calls the provider. The provider confirms the plan and any wishes that were recorded with it, arranges to bring you into their care from wherever you are, and begins the arrangements. For a direct cremation plan, that may mean the cremation itself and the return of the ashes to your family. For an attended plan, it means working with your family to book the crematorium, agree a date and time, arrange an officiant, if required, and bring together the music, readings and tributes you asked for.
This means your loved ones won’t have to ring around funeral directors, compare prices or find money for anything in the plan. They will have one point of contact who will put in place the funeral you chose, and if they would like to add something that is not in the plan, such as a limousine or extra flowers, they can usually do so and pay for it at the time.
Jamie Saunders, who manages Memoria’s Waveney crematorium, sees both situtations regularly.
“One difference I sometimes notice between funeral plan customers and those arranging a funeral at the time of need is that those with a plan in place often have the reassurance of knowing many key decisions have already been considered. It can remove some of the pressure from families at what is already a very emotional time.”
At Memoria Funerals, the line your family calls is answered 24 hours a day and they are given a dedicated consultant who stays with them throughout.
Plans often sit in the background for many years, and life does not stand still in the meantime, so it helps to know how common situations are handled.
Memoria Funerals offers three prepaid plans. The Direct Cremation Plan is £1,595, the Personal Plan is £2,495 and the Celebration of Life Plan is £3,095, and each can be paid for with a single payment or over 60 months. These plans are fully-inclusive, so there is nothing more for your family to pay for the services it covers, and the attended plans include your choice of any crematorium in mainland UK.
Memoria Funerals is part of the Memoria Group, one of a handful of UK providers that owns and operates its own crematoria, which means that when you choose one of them, everything from the first phone call to the service itself is handled by one team. Our Direct Cremation Plan is 5-star rated by Fairer Finance, and we are rated 4.9 Excellent on Trustpilot by over 4,000 families.
If you would like to talk through how a plan might work for you, call 0800 007 3620. There is no obligation and no pressure, and if a plan is not the right product for your situation we will tell you. You can also compare the three plans or request a free guide to read in your own time.
Yes, when you buy a prepaid funeral plan with Memoria Funerals, the services listed in the plan are guaranteed, even if funeral costs increase in the future. Anything that is not in the plan, such as a limousine or extra flowers, would be paid for at the time if your family would like it. If you’re buying your plan from a different provider, it’s important to check that every cost in the plan is included in full rather than a contribution towards it.
All FCA-authorised providers have to hold plan money in either an insurance policy or an independent trust, separate from their own business accounts. With Memoria Funerals, your money is used to buy a whole of life insurance policy with our chosen insurer.
If the provider is FCA-authorised, your plan is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means your funeral will still go ahead or your money will be refunded. You can check any provider on the Financial Services Register before you buy.
This varies between providers, so it is always worth asking. With a Memoria Funerals plan, if that happens within the first two years your representative can either cancel for a refund or pay the balance and have the funeral delivered. After two years the funeral will be delivered with nothing more to pay, and accidental death is covered in full from the start.
Yes. Every FCA-regulated plan has a 30-day cooling-off period during which you can cancel for a full refund, and after that a cancellation fee applies as set out in the provider’s plan terms.
Yes. Many people arrange a plan for a parent or partner, often together, and the plan is held in the name of the person it is for.
More guides from Memoria Funerals:
Last reviewed: October 2026.
