Your funeral planning checklist
Most of a plan is information your family would otherwise have to hunt down on a terrible day. Collect it once, keep it where they will look, and your planning meeting will practically run itself.
The wishes that make it yours
- Where and how: the funeral home chapel, your church or graveside; a rosary, a wake or a repast; open or closed casket.
- The personal touches: songs, scripture or poems, the flowers, what you will wear, which jewelry stays with you and which goes to family.
- The people: your pastor or officiant, musicians, pallbearers, and any military, sorority, lodge or church honors.
- Your legacy: a charity for gifts in your memory, and whether you are an organ donor.
Facts the funeral home will need
- Your full legal name, birth date and birthplace, and current address.
- Your parents' names, including your mother's maiden name, and where they were born.
- Your marital status, your spouse's name, and the names and cities of your children and siblings.
- Your work, schooling and the cities you have called home, for the obituary and the death certificate.
- Any military service: branch, dates, rank, and where your DD-214 is kept.
Never type a Social Security number into a website form, ours included. It belongs on paper, at the meeting.
Where the important papers live
- Your will, trust, advance health care directive, and your attorney's contact.
- Life insurance, annuity contracts and any existing funeral plan.
- The name and number of your executor or trustee.
- What should happen to your email and social media accounts.
Keep the finished record at home, somewhere your family knows to check. A safe deposit box can be hard to open quickly.
The first calls
Write down the people to tell first and the two calls that matter most: the funeral home and your agent. What a full pre-plan covers.
Ask for the printed workbook
Janie has printed workbooks with room to write all of this by hand. Request one and choose "Mail me a planning workbook" on the form. She will get it to you and answer any questions, with nothing expected in return.