Gigglebyte, not if there are family of the deceased.'
My MIL died intestate at age 51. She had remarried but hadn't updated her will, so previous one was void.
Her house & belongings which were in her name only, (bought after her divorce from FIL) were divided between her 2nd husband, my husband and his two siblings.
Was a long drawn out saga though....
Thankfully she had a funeral plan through her employer which paid her funeral expenses once death cert came through.
Moral of the story make a will.

I notice those who have got funeral insurance packages seem to be paying pretty reasonable amounts around the $18 - $20 mark. I am in mid 70s and when I looked at this sort of cover recently the monthly costs were way above these amounts. What companies are you getting that cover for those dollars? Have I left it too late to get reasonably affordable cover now?

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that my mum said that once you have paid a certain amount to the funeral plan the payments actually stop, so you aren't paying endlessly more than you are receiving. It could be that if you are older, they make the payments higher so that they anticipate getting to the set figure before you 'expire'.

Hubby & I made out wills with Public Trust but someone has since told me that they held on to a deceased person's money for quite some time for several reasons and when they released it they only paid 1% interest on that money. Has anyone else had bad experience with money being released? Reading through these blogs leads me to think I have to rethink my will as I thought Public Trust had the power to release money to my children immediately to help them with travel to get to the funeral - especially helpful if they live overseas.

Spoke to a friend who is a funeral celebrant and she said she has learnt that you can have your body cremated immediately thus saving on costs on chemicals and just have the ashes at the funeral service. This way you can also be cremated in a very inexpensive pine box and no-one would know. Much easier if you want to have a more relaxed service at home, on the beach, in the garden etc..........will be speaking to my children about this.

Seems like there are some choices;
http://prepaidfunerals.co.nz/index.htm
Anyone with experience of this bunch?

Thanks majorminor will have a look at that.

Interesting discussion on this topic. My experience with Public Trust: When brother died a few years ago, they held onto everything for eighteen months before winding it up. It was only finalised after brother's wife got a solicitor to look into what the hold-up was.
The timing rather shocked me, as I had been present with my brother in the hospice shortly before his death, and a representative from Public Trust came to visit him. Brother asked me to stay for the visit, and I heard the PT man assure Brother that his family would be fine, and they'd get the will requests honoured quickly.
Of course after that experience with PT I would never use their services for anything. Once bitten twice shy, which should be "never again".

I totally agree Ruth
A close friend had a similiar experience and would never go through Public Trust again.

Hmmmmmmm - now I'm beginning to think I should see a lawyer and get another will drawn up and give PT a miss - thanks for the feedback.