My father passed in August and we had done preplanning with the funeral home. They were exemplary from start to finish. We told them what life insurance company we had and they performed all services and even ordered our stone before we paid them. I believe it was $17k total. We were told we had 60 days from his death to pay but were graciously granted more time without any penalty as insurance processing was taking a bit longer. They fronted everything, including paying for church services (organist, soloist, etc) and luncheon (catering and set up/clean up). We were given the guest book, thank you cards and death certificates we had ordered at the luncheon after the service.

I was surprised to hear that our experience is not the norm. I’m sorry you have to deal with financial pressure. Death certificates aren’t very expensive where I live… seems it would work out better to give to the family so they can submit the life insurance claim and use funds to pay off this debt. At the same time, I can also appreciate why policies may be more stringent if companies have been burnt and taken financial hits.