Gardinier Funeral Home : Franklin, Pennsylvania (PA)

At Gardinier Funeral Home, Inc., we would like to inform you of the services we provide to ensure that your are confident and knowledgeable in all decisions that must be made.

We have professional funeral directors who care about your needs.

We can organize funeral arrangements either in advance or in the occurrence of a lost loved one.

Due to recent headlines about certain funeral homes in the Venango County area and their treatment of pre-arrangements, I thought it wise to inform you about the perils of using a burial trust. It is my opinion that in most instances Burial Trusts should not be used.

Burial trusts were the first financial vehicle in which a client’s money was placed for pre-arrangements. They are low interest bearing (as low as .5%), rarely used for guaranteeing funeral arrangements and they can possibly be taxed. If a burial trust is not properly written, it may not be an exempted burial agreement for the Department of Welfare. Burial trusts are also subject to misappropriation by funeral homes and/or third party trust managers. The funds are often made payable to the order of third party companies, the funeral home or funeral director. Additionally, burial trusts and all proceeds are paid to the funeral director, regardless if your total funeral bill is less than the trust funds available. It would be at the funeral director’s discretion as to how much (if any) money will be returned to the family.

Insurance-funded Preneed Funeral Agreement (IPFA) is a much safer vehicle to use when establishing a pre-arrangement. IPFA’s are insurance policies and agreements specifically designed for pre-arrangements. They have many advantages: they are not subject to taxes, they are easy to qualify for acceptance by the Department of Welfare for burial arrangements, and they are often used to guarantee costs. (This means the funeral home will accept the proceeds of the policies regardless of how great the amount the funeral arrangements have increased in price.) Excess proceeds of the policy are returned to the named beneficiary, not the funeral home or funeral director. Another advantage of IPFA’s is the ability to make time payments. Some plans allow for automatic cost guarantees from the time the policy is enforced. This is dependent upon the age and health of the individual. The greatest safe guard that an IPFA has for the pre-arranger is the client’s check is made payable to an insurance company. The pre-arranger will receive a life insurance policy in return. The client is always aware of the location of his or her money.

There are two types of IPFA’s . One funded by fraternal insurance companies. The other funded by stock or mutual insurance companies. They function primarily in the same manner except for two differences. Fraternal insurance companies do not pay into the Pennsylvania Life and Health Guaranty Association. This means there is no protection for those policies under the Guaranty Association Act. The policies may be worthless if the company becomes insolvent. The second difference is the agents have limited insurance licenses. These agents generally have little or no training and cannot write policies with any other insurance company.

We offer a free consultation to help you make new pre-arrangements and research your existing pre-arrangements to verify if they have been filed properly. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Funeral Home to talk to a Funeral Director (Gardinier Funeral Home has the area’s only Certified Pre-Planning Consultant).

Michael W. Gardinier
Certified Pre-need Consultant
Fully Licensed Insurance Agent

Jubal A. Kelly, F.D.
Fully Licensed Insurance Agent

David R. FitzGerald, F.D.