Wilkerson Funeral Home Pre-Planning

PRE-PLANNING

Pre-planning, pre-arrangement, or pre-need means planning prior to death. By pre-planning, you relieve your family of many difficult decisions that must be made at a very stressful time. Preplanning allows you to evaluate financial considerations and make decisions at a time when you are not burdened with the emotional stress following a death.

Pre-planning can be done whether your choice for body disposition is burial, cremation or entombment. In pre-planning a funeral we caution you to be a well-informed consumer. A well informed customer will gather all of the facts and figures associated with funerals including the quality and prices of merchandise.

Because of the increasing number of appointments that we schedule for pre-planning conferences with families, we have added a licensed funeral director to our staff who is available for pre-planning only. We do not make a charge to discuss funeral arrangements and you are under no obligation to us. Call us at 252-752-2101 if you would like to schedule an appointment.

For your convenience, you can download a Pre-Planning Form in a pdf file which you can print. You must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to use this file.

Click here to download the Pre-Planning Form

Wilkerson Funeral Home has been operated by the Wilkerson Family continually since 1932. We think that this is an important consideration in your decision to pre-plan and possibly pre-pay for a service. While other funeral homes have come and gone, we have been here and plan to continue to be here when the time comes for the service to be provided. We are not owned by a large company that can dictate to us nor do we have owners that do not work in the business. Our owners are all employed by the funeral home and live in the community.

When we serve a family that has had a death, we record certain information that is required in order to complete the death certificate and to publish the obituary. We think it is a good idea to record this same information during the pre-planning process. It does not take long to complete this section. Details such as church officials to conduct the service, pallbearers, musical selections and memorial donations to charitable organizations can all be tentatively noted and then changed, if necessary, when finalizing the actual arrangements.

You may want to discuss funeral prices for services and merchandise. We are prepared to explain to you all of the costs and options that you have in making your arrangements. If you decide to select the casket and vault, we make a record of the selections that you make. We cannot guarantee that the same casket and vault models will be obtainable at death, but similar models would most likely be available. Storage considerations make it impractical for us to put aside the selections that you make.

If you desire to fund the pre-arrangement, there are several items that need to be considered. Your money will be used to purchase an insurance policy. We have selected Homesteaders Life as the insurance carrier. The premiums may be paid up front or over a period of 3, 5 or 10 years, depending on your age. The face amount of the policy grows according to an interest rate established annually by the insurance company. You may choose to have a guaranteed contract or a standard contract.

With the guaranteed contract, the funeral home agrees to accept the proceeds of the insurance policy as payment in full for all of the guaranteed charges. Charges that do not qualify for guaranteed status include items such as cemetery charges, flowers, and paid obituaries. Any overages are retained by the funeral home and any deficiencies are absorbed by the funeral home.

With the standard contract the funeral home does not guarantee any charges and the proceeds of the insurance policy are credited against the charges for the funeral at the time of death. Any overage in funds is refunded to a secondary beneficiary and any deficiency is the responsibility of the family.

Both insurance contracts are subject to health questions and certain health conditions may require that a limited death benefit would be in effect for the first two years. Any guaranteed contract would be affected by this situation and would not be in full benefit until the two-year period was past. All contracts are subject to a standard two-year contestable period as well.

All pre-arrangements must be recorded with the N. C. Board of Mortuary Science. A filing fee of $20.00 is required. The NCBMS will acknowledge to the purchaser that the contract has been properly filed and then annually will audit the records to make certain that the funds remain on deposit and that proper record keeping is followed. The funeral home can withdraw the funds only after a Certificate of Performance is completed.

The pre-need contract will be set up as either a revocable account or an irrevocable account. A revocable account may be canceled at any time by the purchaser. An irrevocable account cannot be canceled, but the benefits can be transferred to any licensed funeral home prior to need. Most of the contracts are set up as irrevocable. One advantage to an irrevocable account concerns a person who is attempting to qualify for medical assistance or enter a nursing home. There is a restriction as to the amount of money that may be held in that person's name. Currently, the funds in an irrevocable contract are not counted as being an asset of the purchaser. Sometimes people will assign death benefits to the funeral home from policies that already exist. This takes the cash value of the policy out of the person's name, but more than likely the death benefit of the policy does not grow.

We take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that your money is safe. We feel confident in the financial stability of Homesteaders Life Insurance Company and will continue to monitor their financial positions.

Cemetery property; lots, grave markers and mausoleum spaces may be purchased in advance of need. Unlike pre-need funerals, deeds can be issued for the specific cemetery property. Therefore, this money does not have to be deposited into insurance policies and allows you to lock-in today's prices. We operate Pinewood Memorial Park and will have a representative contact you for information concerning the cemetery, if you so desire.