Funeral Consumers Alliance

 
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FAQs

Everything you need to know about funerals, cremation, burial, embalming, green funerals, and much more!

If you're new to funeral planning, the best articles to start with below are:

  • Four-Step Funeral Planning: Where to Start When You Don't Know How to Start
  • Paying Final Respects: Your Rights When Buying a Funeral
  • The Pitfalls of Preneed (why you should almost never prepay for a funeral)
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# Article Title
"Simple and Cheap" My Father Said
A Word About Burial Liners (written by a grave digger)
Body and Organ Donation, A Gift to Science
Caskets: Everything the Mortician Won't Tell You and Some Better Places to Shop
Common Funeral Myths
Consumer's Guide to Cemetery Purchases
Cremation Explained, Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Dead Bodies and Disease: The “Danger” That Doesn’t Exist
Death Away from Home
Did You Forget the Most Important Part of Funeral Planning?
Don't Get Buried in Debt
Earth Burial, Tradition in Simplicity
Embalming: What You Should Know
Four-Step Funeral Planning
Four-Step Funeral Planning: Where to Start When You Don't Know How to Start!
Green Burial
Green Burial
How To Help Grieving People
How to Inspect a Crematory for above-board operation
How to Read a Funeral Home Price List
Lay Me to Rest in A Plain Pine Box, One Mother's Letter to Her Children
Light, Like the Sun
Monumental Manipulation
Paying Final Respects - Your Rights When Buying a Funeral
Planning a Memorial Service
Proceso de Embalsamar un Cadaver
Scatter-Brained - all about cremation and what's left
Starting a Funeral Committee in Your Congregation
The Pitfalls of Preneed
Veterans' Funeral and Burial Benefits
What is FCA and How Can it Help Me?
What is the Difference Between "Viewing" and "Visitation"?
What's Your Funeral I.Q.?
 

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Dangers of Prepaying

"Preneed" is a term coined by the funeral industry to describe the arrangement and payment of a funeral prior to death. Obviously, if you are to have any say in it, you must plan in advance of your death. "Prearrangement" is also used interchangeably with "preneed".

The marketing of preneed plans for funeral services and merchandise is increasingly prevalent. Various companies, including insurance companies, "for-profit cremation societies," and "preneed associations" flood the mail with advertising which touts the benefits of their preneed plans. There are a number of pitfalls, as well as options, about which consumers should be well-informed.

Click here for the full article.

Click here for a pdf.

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Newsflash

Welcome to our new website. We've overhauled it to make it easier for you to find the practical information you need to make informed funeral choices and get answers to the most common questions about funeral choices and costs. Take a look around. Our Frequently Asked Questions section has nearly 30 pamphlets on common funeral, burial, and cremation questions.

About FCA

The Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA) is a Federation of Nonprofit Consumer Information Societies protecting a consumer's right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral since 1963.