Costello-Runyon Funeral Home - Metuchen, NJ - funerals, cremations, caskets, vaults, urns, and cemetery monuments

Benefits of Planning Ahead

The prearrangement of funerals is an important aspect of the funeral business today. Arranging a funeral requires many decisions to be made.

Most people preplan for the following reasons:

their funeral preferences will be known.
survivors are relieved of difficult decisions
required information that is not readily available to survivors is at the preplanner's fingertips.
there is a spend-down for people applying for SSI/Medicaid and General Assistance.

Once someone dies, it is often confusing and stressful for survivors to come to the funeral home to arrange for the services and have the correct information available. Survivors can still be involved in the funeral process at the time of death. Their role would be to make the service memorable by the choice of flowers, spiritual readings, music selections and providing their personal input in the form of pictures, memorabilia or eulogy. However, everything else has been done.

Prearranging & Prefunding

There are two kinds of prepaid arrangements: revocable and irrevocable.

Revocable
Revocable arrangements must be refunded upon demand, including all principal and interest. Trust fund moneys are revocable or 100% refundable on demand and with interest. And you may change the funeral home and the selected funeral services or merchandise at any time without penalty.

Irrevocable
In New Jersey, all SSI/Medicaid accounts specifically for the purpose of funding a funeral are irrevocable, meaning NOT REFUNDABLE.

Only individuals prepaying their funerals in order to qualify for SSI, Medicaid, or General Assistance may establish irrevocable arrangements, which must be used for funeral and burial purposes. Irrevocable arrangements cannot, by law, be cancelled or refunded (although consumers may change funeral homes).

Irrevocable Accounts & Any Excess Moneys

In order to reimburse the state of New Jersey a small portion of the money it spends each year on the SSI/Medicaid program, legislation has been enacted regarding irrevocable funeral trusts and insurance policies specifically purchased to fund a funeral.

This legislation says that, once all funeral expenses have been paid, any moneys remaining in:

irrevocable trust accounts opened on or after February 27, 2000
or newly issued insurance policies that have been purchased on or after February 27, 2000 and that are irrevocably assigned will be forwarded directly to the state.

Funeral Planning CHOICES^TM has put in place procedures to ensure that only irrevocable account holders who are receiving SSI/Medicaid or General Assistance benefits, at time of death, will have their access proceeds forwarded to the state.