Parent With Alzheimer's And No Money Saved For A Funeral? 2 Things You Can Do To Get What You Need

If you have a parent with Alzheimer's, you know this disease is terminal. Alzheimer's is a very progressive disease even though it can take years for it to end. If your parent did not plan for their funeral and there is not enough money to cover everything, this can be very stressful for the entire family. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help, three of which are listed below.

Life Insurance

You need to check to see if your parent has a life insurance plan. If you do not know if they have life insurance and your parent is at the point where they cannot tell you, then you will need to investigate this. First, get your parent's checkbook statements and look for any monthly payments to an insurance company. If you find one, contact the insurance company and explain your situation. They will likely mail a policy to your parent's address so you can determine how much life insurance they have.

If your parent does have life insurance but it will not be enough to cover all funeral expenses, talk to the insurance company about increasing the amount of the policy. This will work well if your parent is not at the end stages of this disease as they could live up to 10 or more years. If this happens the life insurance money you receive should be enough to cover everything.

Cremation

Cremation is much less expensive when compared to a traditional funeral. This is because you do not have to pay to have the body embalmed. You also do not have to purchase a casket or a burial plot. Instead, you will only have to pay cremation fees.

Once the cremation is finished, you can purchase an urn to place the ashes in. You can purchase an urn from the funeral home, or you can purchase one online on a variety of websites. Purchase more than one urn if you want more than one family member to have some ashes.

If you do not want to keep the ashes the funeral home will offer them to you in a type of container. You can then spread the ashes in an area that your parent loved, such as in their flower garden, at the beach, and more.

Talk with the funeral director to learn much more about cremations so you can decide if you would like to do this.

These two tips will allow you to focus on caring for your parent instead of having these money issues constantly on your mind.