PREPARING FOR A FUNERAL

If a death has occurred without any pre-arrangements for the funeral, please go to our page “When someone dies” for more information about the steps you need to complete in preparation for the funeral.

 PRE-ARRANGING A FUNERAL 

Funeral pre-arrangements allow you to make arrangements before death occurs. It may be your own funeral or that of a loved one.

Michael Hutchinson Funeral Director provide a Funeral Pre-arrangement Form which can be completed online or you can go to our “Printable Version”.

To complete the form off-line, follow the steps below:

  • download and save the PDF version –
    click here to open the file
    – then save to your computer
  • print the form;
  • complete all known details;
  • forward the completed form to us by:
    – post; or
    – fax; or
    – scanned email.

Completing a pre-arrangement takes the stress out of the process and allows us (your Funeral Director) to complete the funeral process on your behalf. It’s a sensible move without obligation from you.

ARRANGING A FUNERAL UPON DEATH 

Before arranging a funeral when a death occurs, you are required to follow a specific, simple protocol depending on the nature of the death.

Please go to our information about “When someone dies“.

CASKET SELECTION

This is our ‘Rosewood finish coffin’ for a ‘full-service cremation’ and a ‘full-service burial’.

Cremation Urn Selection

We offer a wide range of Cremation Urns to choose from. To view the full range, please download the brochure “Keep Your Memories Close“.pdf (This is a large file which may take some time to download)

PREPAID FUNERALS

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Prepaid funerals are often more economical than Funeral Insurance.

You can pay in a lump sum or pay it off at whatever rate and frequency you can afford.

  • Your money is always safe.  It must be held by a Trustee under Queensland Law to preserve the safety of the funds.
  • We use a trustee called Sureplan Friendly Society (Sureplan Gold).  Please visit their website for more information www.sureplan.com.au or call them on 1800 817 105.
  • This is the simplest of plans on the market.  The trustees are reputable, the money you’ve paid is always yours until needed for the funeral, it can be transferred to another state, or to another funeral director.
  • You can make full payment in a lump sum.
  • Or you can pay off the total by periodic payments direct from your bank at your own pace.
  • Please note: Some parts of the funeral cost cannot be guaranteed against price increase because of wide variations in cost over the years and where an outside supplier provides the item or service.
  • You can make full payment in a lump sum.
  • Cremation/ cemetery fees: Most crematoriums will allow you to pay for the cremation at today’s rate thus locking the price at today’s rate. Some Cemeteries do too.
  • You have a 30 day cooling down period in which you can claim a refund of your full payment.

For Pre-Paying of Full Service Funerals, you can also pay towards minor costs such as minister, notices, flowers and after hours removal charges, you can contribute an amount towards those charges.

 FUNERAL INSURANCE

Wouldn’t it be better for your family to inherit most of your funeral insurance policy than paying all of it out to your funeral director?

There are now many pre-paid insurance plans, which generally pay between $6,000 and $45,000 to your survivors depending on your premium & the circumstances of your death. Many funeral directors charge $6000 to $12000 for a cremation service.

Our full-service funeral usually costs lower than $3500, or a no service cremation usually costs lower than $1500. Same quality of staff, same quality of vehicles, same quality of service, same crematoriums that the other funeral directors supply, but charge more than us.

If you’d like to take advantage of our lower than the average Brisbane Funeral Director’s prices, just fill out our pre-arrangement form on this website & email it back to us. We’ll send you back an information pack & a pre-arrangement certificate that you can give to your family so they know your preferred Funeral Director is Michael Hutchinson Funeral Director.

There’s no charge, no obligation. You can change it at any time, cancel it if you want though having done it, it should give you peace of mind of knowing that your family will inherit money that they wouldn’t have if they use other funeral directors.

And as well you’ll never hear from us again, we promise never to follow up with annoying door knocks, phone calls, letters and emails – ever.