How Much Burial Insurance Do I Need?
Most people pick a round number and hope. This works from the actual bill, which is usually smaller than the policy somebody tried to sell you and occasionally larger than the one you were about to buy.
Burial insurance is one of the few products where the right amount is knowable almost exactly. A funeral home is required to give you a general price list on request, the cemetery will quote you, and your own small debts are a matter of record. Add those up and you have the number.
That matters because the alternative is guessing, and guessing in this category goes one of two ways. Either somebody sells you more than you need, at a premium you pay for the rest of your life, or you buy a tidy round figure that turns out not to cover the bill your family actually receives.
Work it out below. If the answer is smaller than you expected, that is a good outcome and you should buy the smaller policy.
The actual bill
Ring a local funeral home and ask for their general price list before you fill this in. Rough figures work, but real ones work better.
Prefer to work it out yourself?
The calculator above needs JavaScript. The arithmetic is not complicated — here it is, so you can do it on paper and skip us entirely if you want to.
- Ask a local funeral home for their general price list and take the total for the service you would actually want.
- Add the cemetery costs: plot, opening and closing, and the marker.
- Add any medical bills that would still be owed after insurance.
- Add small debts and the cost of clearing things up.
- Add travel if family would have to come a distance.
- Subtract money already set aside that your family could reach quickly.
- Subtract any existing policy earmarked for this, and anything a prepaid contract already covers.
- What is left is the gap.
Questions about this number
Is it better to buy a prepaid funeral plan instead?
They solve different problems. A prepaid plan locks in today's prices for specific goods and services with a specific funeral home, which is genuinely useful and is also the catch: it is tied to that provider and can be awkward to move if you relocate or the home changes hands. Burial insurance pays cash to a beneficiary who can spend it anywhere, including on things a funeral plan never covers.
What if my number comes out very small?
Then buy a small policy, and be pleased. The most common mistake in this category is buying more than the bill because a round number sounds sensible. If you have savings set aside and few debts, the honest answer may be that you need very little or nothing at all, and an agent who will say so is worth keeping.
Should I count money in my bank account?
Only what your family could actually reach quickly. Accounts can be frozen while an estate is sorted out, which is precisely the period when the funeral bill arrives. Money held jointly or with a named beneficiary is usually available fast; money that has to go through probate often is not, and that is the gap burial insurance exists to bridge.
Does this tell me what the policy will cost?
No. Premiums depend on your age, your health, the amount and the company, and whether the death benefit is graded changes the picture entirely. Any figure printed on a web page would be wrong for most people reading it. This works out how much you need; we quote the cost against your actual details.
Send this to a licensed agent
Your figure goes with it, so the conversation starts from a real number rather than a round one. A licensed agent calls back, usually the same business day, and will tell you plainly if you need less than this.
Read next
Burial Insurance — what it really is, and the graded death benefit that catches most buyers out. · How much life insurance do I need? if the need is larger than a funeral.