18 Best Burial Insurance Companies Review 2022

The best burial insurance policy for you may not be the best one for someone else. Coverage amounts, age restrictions, and health are all important factors to consider when shopping for burial insurance, and some may mean more to you than others.

We’ve highlighted some of the burial policies sold by 18 of the best burial insurance companies in the United States, so you can weigh your options and find the right coverage for you and your family.

A burial insurance plan is a small and life insurance policy that doesn’t require any medical exam. It comes with a quick cash payout to your heirs to enable them to have the needed funds to pay for your funeral expenses.

Given the above points, there are salient questions that most certainly come to your mind:

• What should you understand about the final expense and burial insurance?
• What are the best companies?
• How much will it cost you?
• Which companies offer coverage without a 2-year waiting period?

In this article, we provide answers to the many questions you have.

What is burial insurance, final expense insurance & funeral insurance?

Do these three terms sound similar to you at all?  Burial insurance, final expense insurance, or funeral insurance, what do all these terms point to?

When talking about burial insurance, we are indirectly talking about final expense insurance or funeral insurance.

This is so because the three terms can be interchangeably used. By definition, burial insurance generally refers to a non-comprehensive whole life insurance policy with low-priced premiums meant for paying for all final expenses of an insured person at the time of his/her passing.

These policies and for most insurance companies, no medical exams are required, the acceptance rate is almost guaranteed regardless of any critical health issues and coverage amount normally starts from $2,000 to $40,000 to get started.

Typically, a whole life final expense policy doesn’t come with much fine print as with other policies, but there are certain salient points to note such as:

• Rates stay the same for life.
• Coverage never decreases.
• The policy never expires or gets terminated.
• Investment or cash value build components.

There is no confusion as to how funeral or burial insurance works and neither is it as complicated as many think.

Once the policyholder passes away, the insurance company will simply pay out the death benefit to your beneficiaries.

Generally, the death benefit comes in form of a tax-exempt check that will be paid directly to your beneficiaries.

Depending on your choice, the receiver of the death benefit doesn’t, in most cases, necessarily have to be your heir or a person.

You can choose or name a funeral home as your beneficiary and, in such case, when you pass away, the death benefit is paid directly to your chosen funeral home rather than a person.

Another important point you need to understand is the usage of the death benefit. While the death benefit is primarily meant for paying your final expense there is no restriction as to how the fund should be spent.

You can use the money to offset any outstanding bills such as funeral costs or medical bills and any leftover should be given to the insured’s beneficiary (s) and not the funeral home.

How the leftover is spent is not anybody’s business as the beneficiary can spend it on anything as s/he deems fit.

Sample Final Expense or Burial Insurance Cost.

Burial insurance policies can be different from company to companies and so for some insurance companies; it comes as either a whole life policy or term policy.

On average, burial insurance costs can range from $50-$100 per month (approx.) with the most common face amount going for $10,000.

Premium is another important factor to consider and your specific premium will vary based on your health, age, gender, and the face amount of burial insurance policy you purchase.

Looking at it from the point of samples, what exactly can your final expense cost?

There is actually no generally fixed cost for what insurance companies must charge for a burial insurance policy.

Below is a table showing an estimate of what final expense insurance might cost:

Age	Female	Female	Male	Male
	$10,000	$10,000	$10,000	$10,000
	Without Waiting Period	With Guaranteed Application  Acceptance	Without Waiting Period	With Guaranteed Acceptance
45	$22	$28	$27	$33
50	$24	$30	$30	$36
55	$27	$38	$35	$45
60	$32	$42	$43	$55
65	$41	$51	$54	$66
70	$51	$69	$70	$89
75	$71	$98	$99	$121
80	$98	$140	$139	$166
85	$135	$170	$192	$230
89	$275	N/A	$358	N/A

 

Note: The price can vary by insurance company, but from our experience, the table above gives the likely costs you can expect from various companies.

Burial insurance benefits.

The benefits of burial insurance are enormous and it’s worth the investment.

Apart from helping you relieve the financial difficulties your loved ones and family members may go through when paying for your funeral, it allows your beneficiary to use the money in the way s/he deem fit.

Additionally, it provides your beneficiary with the opportunity to use any additional funds left for paying for any unanticipated costs such as medical bills, legal bills, and more.

Preneed funeral insurance

As the name implies, preneed funeral insurance is aimed at achieving the same purpose as burial insurance, and in that, preneed funeral insurance is designed to earmark funds to meet up your funeral expenses before they arise.

Just like a burial insurance policy, preneed funeral insurance is another type of insurance policy aimed at relieving your loved ones from the burden of covering your funeral expense.

Some of the predetermined costs this policy covers include funeral merchandise, standard funeral home services, church services, and burial services as well as merchandise.

In some cases, depending on insurance companies though, this policy does provide protection against the rising cost of funeral expenses caused by inflation thereby making it easy to lock into the present costs of goods and services.

Generally, preneed funeral insurance typically costs from $10,000 to $25,000. The best part of this type of policy is that it allows you to pay either in full or in installments and it doesn’t require a medical exam to get started with it.

Preneed funeral insurance offers some other amazing benefits, and in that, it takes off your loved one’s shoulder the financial or administrative difficulties of covering your funeral expenses when you die.

More so, this policy allows you to choose a funeral home of your choice and to decide what benefits you want to pay for your funeral.

Which Should You Choose: Burial Insurance or Preneed Insurance?

Although Preneed policy can also be offered as either a term life policy or a type of permanent policy, it’s different from a burial insurance policy. In that, it doesn’t pay the benefits of your policy to your beneficiary as it’s applicable with a burial insurance policy.

Instead of paying the benefits to your beneficiary when you pass away, it pays the money directly to the funeral service provider you already selected.

So this means when you die, the policy pays the life proceeds directly and immediately to your chosen funeral home or an assignee who is expected to cover your funeral expenses for you.

How Does Burial Insurance Work?

If you’ve tried other types of life insurance, you most likely have an idea of how burial insurance works.

A burial insurance policy can be compared to other types of life insurance because if you’re already in any other type of life insurance you certainly can use it to pay for your funeral expenses.

Basically, the main reason why most people enroll for life insurance is that they believe it will relieve their survivors or beneficiaries of the financial burden they’ll have to bear at their death.

Although burial insurance is designed primarily to cover your final expenses, it can provide a partial replacement for your income loss at death and make life easy financially for your heirs.

Generally speaking, burial insurance is not different from a permanent whole life policy. However, it differs from “regular” whole life policies if you compare how burial insurance is issued, and, in that, burial insurance is issued in lower face amounts.

Sometimes it ranges from $1,000 to $25,000 and it can be higher than that depending on individual cases. The best part about these lower face amounts is that it makes it a lot easier for you to qualify for a burial insurance policy.

On top of that, once you enroll for a burial insurance policy and you pay your premium in full for the policy, the policy will remain intact up till your death. However, your heirs will need to enforce the policy when you die so they can claim the benefits.

You may want to ask a question: does a term life insurance policy work the same way as burial insurance?

The answer is “No”. Because term life insurance terminates at a certain point in life. Termination can come once you attain a specific age or after a given number of years.

The bottom line is short term policy can expire before your death and, in that case, you can’t claim the benefit.

All in all, each type of insurance policy has its own advantages. If you’re looking for a way to supplement your main life insurance policy, you may want to consider using burial insurance.

Also, if you’re looking for an insurance policy that will save you cost, burial insurance is way better than regular life insurance.

How Do The Insurance Companies Determine Your Cost of Final Expense Life Insurance?

If you’re wondering how much does burial insurance cost, you should try to first understand how insurance companies determine how much to charge for each person.

Since burial insurance is life insurance, a few different variables go into determining how much your funeral insurance should cost.

Remember, you don’t pay the same amount of premium as someone else, except you’re getting the same policy and your situation is identical.

Generally, the following factors will determine how much you pay for your burial insurance:

1) Your gender

Your gender is one of the most fundamental factors that determine the cost of your burial insurance. This is so as men pay more than women. However, there is an exception to this if you live in Montana.

In Montana, the state regulations stipulate the same rate for both males and females. See what people feel about this regulation:

‘Insurance is one of the few remaining areas where blatant sex discrimination is still sanctioned,’ Ann Brodsky of the Women’s Lobbyist Fund, a Montana women’s rights group, said.

2) Your age

It’s a norm for almost every burial insurance company to have a predetermined price for people of a specific age. There are prices for people aged 51, 52, 53, and above.

Also, some companies have prices based on certain age brackets such as 50-55 or 75-80 and so on. Although this type of pricing plan isn’t common in the industry there are few companies like AARP that does offer prices for an age band.

One thing you should know is that the older you become the higher the amount the carrier will charge you.

In other words, every time you have your birthday the cost of funeral insurance will increase. But you can lock in your monthly fee for life when you get the policy.

3) Your Health

Health is another factor that insurance companies consider when determining how much cost of funeral insurance you should pay. Insurance companies have a way of breaking their product down into 3-4 risk categories.

Most companies have different health ratings based on risk classifications involved:

Premier/Premium/Preferred Plus or Preferred Best–

This is generally used to describe the highest risk rating and This can be attributed to a number of different factors and remember different companies have different ways or ratings the use this.

Preferred–

This describes the insurer’s second-highest health rating.  Most people who you may think of as relatively healthy individuals will fall into this risk rating.

In most cases, an insurance company will use this health rating if you have a little health risk factor like cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Standard Plus–

This is used to describe their middle-tier ratings or the third-highest risk rating.

Generally, people in this class are those with fair health status though may have slight risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or being overweight. And there may have one or more uncontrollable risk factors.

Standard–

A standard risk rating describes their riskiest and most expensive health rating. It’s the lowest of the common ratings.

Usually, people in this class are those with high blood pressure, significant overweight, or very high cholesterol. Most companies will usually use words like “Graded” or “Standard” to describe this health rating.

Overall, almost all of the insurance companies use the word “Modified” to describe their most expensive and riskiest health rating. And most importantly, your health will determine which risk classification best fits you.

4) Tobacco usage

If you’re a tobacco user, you definitely should expect your insurer will charge you more than an applicant who is a non-tobacco user.

Depending on the insurance company, you may get a non-tobacco rating like the ones above but a tobacco smoker is most likely going to give the insurance company a red flag.

Since smoking cigarette is considered a significant health risk and reduce life expectancy, smokers tend to pay higher life insurance costs than non-smokers.

5) The amount of coverage you select

In the end, all other factors above will determine how much exactly you’ll pay in insurance costs per $1,000 in coverage. Once this is determined, every other calculation is to just multiply by the amount of coverage you chose.

A typical illustration is something like this:

Assume your cost per $2,000 is $8.86 per month and you want $20,000 coverage, your monthly premium will come to $88.6 per month (8.86 x 10).

What this illustration means in essence is that the more coverage you purchase, the higher the price of funeral insurance you’ll pay. It’s a proportional thing.

How to Find the Best Burial Insurance Policy.

The truth about finding the best burial policy is that you wouldn’t know which one is best until you have compared offers. And, most importantly, you may have to involve the help of an expert to do this the right way.

While you can do a Google search on your own and get quotes from different companies, you can guarantee if a company will accept you or offer you the best service and cost by simply doing online research.

We will recommend you hire the service of a licensed agent to get some benefits that come with it. A licensed agent will help you determine your eligibility with each final expense company and determine how much exactly you’re expected to be paying per month.

Additionally, a qualified independent final expense life insurance agency will help you with choosing the best company. They’ll go to any length to compare different insurance companies and come up with the most suitable and affordable option for you.

According to statistics from Insurance Information Institute, over half of final expense life companies do not sell their product directly.

They make use of agencies to sell their products. And considering that a large percentage of these life insurance companies don’t advertise on TV, in newspapers, or online, there is a big chance there are many of these companies you don’t know about yet.

So you should understand by now why you need a qualified agent to help you out in your search for the best burial insurance policy.

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