Saving your family all the stress?
We have long held a wary opinion of pre-paid funeral plans here at the GFG. Over the years, we have published numerous blog posts warning people to be extremely careful and to do as much research as possible before committing to purchasing a funeral plan. It’s an absolutely huge market. A multi-billion-pound market. According to Mintel, pre-arranged funerals account […]
Funeral plans – a bonfire of vanities
If you or a member of your family have taken out a pre-paid funeral plan, read on. Important information below! On Friday last week, the crowded funeral plan landscape suddenly became a little less bustling. Quite a lot less, actually. On 29th July 2022, the Financial Conduct Authority took on the regulation of the funeral plan […]
On the subject of funeral plans – your thoughts are invited
Like everyone else who responded to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on whether to make a market investigation reference for the funeral market, we received an e-mail last week. The e-mail invited us to share our views on whether the said MIR should also cover the delivery of funeral services obtained via a pre-paid […]
Those pesky funeral plans…
Here’s a salutary tale for anyone who is seduced into buying a funeral plan in order to ‘get on with enjoying life’, or ‘protect your family from future costs and worry’ or to avail themselves of the ‘peace of mind that your funeral costs and arrangements have been taken care of’, or whatever the latest […]
We’d like just a few minutes of your time…
Dear reader We’d like to ask for a few minutes of your time to respond to two important funeral related consultations. The first is the Funeral Market Study by the Competition and Markets Authority. This forms part of a year long study into the state of the British funeral market which will examine how competition […]
There’s an unpleasant odour emanating from somewhere..
Back in 2015, we reported on this blog about the legal skirmish between funeral plan providers Safe Hands Funeral Plans and Golden Charter – see here to refresh your memory. A paragraph from that blog post came to mind today: ‘While the lawyers order trebles all round and get ready to enwrap both parties in […]
Burgundy stays Burgundy, Lilac becomes Turquoise
In Burgundy coloured news The Telegraph has been hard at work this month, convincing us that the funeral situation in the UK really is dire. On the 10th June, we heard about a grieving gentlemen in New Milton, Hants, who is digging a grave in his back garden to bury his 101 year old mother, unwilling to […]
Help yourself to some of this
When John Taplin of Open Prepaid Funeral Plans first proposed that we work together to create a GFG funeral plan I told him to f*** off. Not in so many words. I was icily polite. I was practised in the art having previously spurned the seductive sweet talk of another funeral plan pedlar which wanted to fly me […]
Dog eats dog. Move on, leave them to it
Here’s the hot news: “… we can today formally announce that we have initiated legal proceedings against the UK’s largest provider of pre-paid funeral plans, Golden Charter, seeking substantial damages for their actions against Safe Hands Funeral Plans.” Yes, the Yorkshire terriers have gone for the throat of wee Big Dawgie, and they ain’t stopping […]
An offer they can’t refuse
A number of independent funeral directors have sent us a copy of a letter they have received from Golden Charter: Dear _________ The latest Funeral Planning Authority statistics confirmed that Golden Charter is now the leading seller of funeral plans. As a non-seller, your existing plans currently do not attract our seller’s additional premium, payable […]
