Any experience with "Purple Cross" irrevocable funeral trusts?

[mountainsoft]

My mom is living in assisted living and will exhaust her personal savings in a few years. When that happens she will need to apply for Medicaid. While I hope she lives many more years, I would like to plan for the future and pay for her funeral expenses before her money is gone. I can't just transfer money to our own savings because we're probably already beyond the five year look back period. So, I was looking at irrevocable funeral trusts and ran across Purple Cross. Has anyone here used them or have any experience?

 

[Sunset]

I think you only need to have her sign up for a prepaid funeral anywhere.

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/usi...tract-to-spend-down-assets-for-medicaid-16240

 

[mountainsoft]

I think you only need to have her sign up for a prepaid funeral anywhere.

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/usi...tract-to-spend-down-assets-for-medicaid-16240

I tried doing this last year with her but she got cold feet and cancelled the appointment with the funeral home at the last minute. She mostly told me her wishes, but doesn't want to talk about it or pursue it further.

So, I've been looking for something more generic where she doesn't have to choose caskets or make any kinds of plans. It would just be setting aside money for that eventual need. I already have a rough idea of the costs after contacting a funeral home last year.

Purple Cross is sending me an info packet. They have lots of positive testimonials, but I would feel better hearing from a third party and not directly from them.

 

[RobbieB]

You can go to the funeral home and do all that picking yourself. You essentially pre-pay the funeral or cremation and not only do you not have to worry about all this depressing stuff in your time of grief, but you lock in the price and the money is gone.

 

[OldShooter]

You can go to the funeral home and do all that picking yourself. You essentially pre-pay the funeral or cremation and not only do you not have to worry about all this depressing stuff in your time of grief, but you lock in the price and the money is gone.

I'm pretty sure that you end up as an unsecured creditor in this scenario. But it made me curious ...

So I looked at the Purple Cross site and from what I read, they may be selling actual insurance. It's a little fuzzy; i searched here (Purple Cross Pre-Planning Solutions) for the word "insurance" and found a comment that implies that the Purple Cross offering is a life insurance policy with zero cash value.

The key thing here is that a Purple Cross customer may be protected by their state's insurance guarantee fund. That would be a good thing. From the web site, though, I could not figure out what state they are in. If you get that, OP, you cold contact that state's insurance commission to verify whether Purple Cross is an insurance company or not and ask about any issues.

 

[Teacher Terry]

When I was the guardian for a good friend that went on Medicaid while in a home the social worker told me to prepay a funeral immediately because you are allowed to do that. It worked out fine.

 

[Sunset]

I tried doing this last year with her but she got cold feet and cancelled the appointment with the funeral home at the last minute. She mostly told me her wishes, but doesn't want to talk about it or pursue it further.

So, I've been looking for something more generic where she doesn't have to choose caskets or make any kinds of plans. It would just be setting aside money for that eventual need. I already have a rough idea of the costs after contacting a funeral home last year.

Purple Cross is sending me an info packet. They have lots of positive testimonials, but I would feel better hearing from a third party and not directly from them.

Can you get power of attorney (or whatever would be similar) to act on her behalf, then you go pick out the coffin/urn and make the arrangements for her, and the payment comes from her account.

If you do all the work, and effort, perhaps it will be a lot less daunting for her, and she will agree, you can get this all set up to save you the costs later, which might be a selling point.

 

[mountainsoft]

I looked at the Purple Cross site and from what I read, they may be selling actual insurance. It's a little fuzzy; i searched here (Purple Cross Pre-Planning Solutions) for the word "insurance" and found a comment that implies that the Purple Cross offering is a life insurance policy with zero cash value. The key thing here is that a Purple Cross customer may be protected by their state's insurance guarantee fund. That would be a good thing. From the web site, though, I could not figure out what state they are in. If you get that, OP, you cold contact that state's insurance commission to verify whether Purple Cross is an insurance company or not and ask about any issues.

I believe they offer multiple products, including insurance. I'm only interested in the irrevocable funeral trust. Their contact info has a 253 area code which is in Seattle here in Washington state.

As you said, they area a little vague on their web site, and even the email response they sent was on the vague side. It didn't give me much confidence, but I'll see what the info package says when it arrives.

 

[mountainsoft]

When I was the guardian for a good friend that went on Medicaid while in a home the social worker told me to prepay a funeral immediately because you are allowed to do that. It worked out fine.

I had read it was better to wait till the person is closer to running out of money before purchasing a trust. If they die before their assets are gone, you don't need the trust.

Mom still has a few years before she will need to apply for Medicaid, so I'm in no rush to get this setup. Just trying to plan ahead.

 

[mountainsoft]

Can you get power of attorney (or whatever would be similar) to act on her behalf, then you go pick out the coffin/urn and make the arrangements for her, and the payment comes from her account.

If you do all the work, and effort, perhaps it will be a lot less daunting for her, and she will agree, you can get this all set up to save you the costs later, which might be a selling point.

I do have power of attorney, but it's still her money. I was hoping she would be more involved, but it may come down to me taking care of it myself (with her approval, of course). Until the whole COVID thing calms down and I can actually visit her in person, I don't feel comfortable bringing it up again.

 

[aja8888]

Just curious, but what kind of funeral are you planning as there are many kinds?

When my Mom passed unexpectedly in California visiting my sister several years ago, we were unprepared and just had her cremated locally. We then had a memorial service at a local church and that was it. My DS took her ashes back to CT and had them buried next to Dad. The whole thing didn't cost more than $2000.

Now if you have a funeral home casket, onsite viewing, embalming, burial plot (real estate purchase), etc, it can add up to Big Bucks!

And there's a bunch of other alternatives in between these two examples.

 

[OldShooter]

I believe they offer multiple products, including insurance. I'm only interested in the irrevocable funeral trust. Their contact info has a 253 area code which is in Seattle here in Washington state.

As you said, they area a little vague on their web site, and even the email response they sent was on the vague side. It didn't give me much confidence, but I'll see what the info package says when it arrives.

I'd just call the WA insurance commission on Monday and see what they say. IMO the key is knowing whether you are an unsecured creditor or not and, whichever is the status, whether you are OK with it or not.

 

[mountainsoft]

Just curious, but what kind of funeral are you planning as there are many kinds?

Just an immediate burial, no service, no flowers, no extras. We might opt for the "scheduled" burial (about $300 more), just so we can have the closure of seeing the casket go in, but there's no service.

Mom already has a burial plot, so we would only need to add a headstone.

She has no friends or family around here, except me and one of her sisters (who is older and may not outlast mom). Remaining family back east certainly won't make a trip out here, especially after mom cut off all contact 20+ years ago.

We don't need anything fancy. Whatever the cheapest box is that can legally be stuck in the ground. There's no reason to spend big money on a casket we'll never see again.

Basically, the cheapest burial we can get away with (which was estimated around $5K to 8K when I inquired last year).

 

[aja8888]

Just an immediate burial, no service, no flowers, no extras. We might opt for the "scheduled" burial (about $300 more), just so we can have the closure of seeing the casket go in, but there's no service.

Mom already has a burial plot, so we would only need to add a headstone.

She has no friends or family around here, except me and one of her sisters (who is older and may not outlast mom). Remaining family back east certainly won't make a trip out here, especially after mom cut off all contact 20+ years ago.

We don't need anything fancy. Whatever the cheapest box is that can legally be stuck in the ground. There's no reason to spend big money on a casket we'll never see again.


Basically, the cheapest burial we can get away with (which was estimated around $5K to 8K when I inquired last year).

Sounds like you researched it. You can buy caskets online and through Costco. Wooden ones are pretty inexpensive.

 

[Teacher Terry]

If I hadn’t paid for the urn, cremation, etc she would have been broke so that’s why the social worker said to buy it while she still had some money. There was no reason for a trust with my friend.

 

[pb4uski]

My great-aunt had a prepaid funeral plan. Essentially, she deposited $x with an insurer/financial institution through the local funeral home. The deposit earned a token amount of interest. I was not involved in setting it up but became aware of it when I became her legal guardian. Her contact had designated that any excess of the contract balance over the cost of the funeral be donated to the American Cancer Society.

When she died, my aunt and I went to the funeral home and pick out a casket and the service. The funeral home did the service and the insurer sent them a check for their services and sent me a check for the excess of her balance over the cost of the funeral. Rather than make a contribution to the ACS directly from her money, I relayed from her money to me a "gift" for the excess and then personally made a donation to the ACS in her memory for the excess so I could take the tax deduction for the contribution and the deduction didn't go to waste.

It worked out pretty well. She was on private pay for her nursing home costs. If she had been on Medicaid LTC I suppose that Medicaid would have had a claim to any excess.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I tried doing this last year with her but she got cold feet and cancelled the appointment with the funeral home at the last minute. She mostly told me her wishes, but doesn't want to talk about it or pursue it further.

Yeah, I wish you luck with that, but now I get it. She doesn't want to consider her own mortality at all, so it was probably like pulling teeth to get an idea of her wishes. My mother was like that; to be honest, I'm pretty surprised she even had a will, but she wouldn't talk about her wishes or sign a POA or anything, so I just had her cremated after the service. She wouldn't even look at most CCRCs, because if she saw walkers or hospital beds she freaked out.

Let us know what you find out about Purple Cross.