How planning ahead can protect your loved ones
Imagine you died tomorrow (it’s easy if you try). While you’re busy unlocking the final mysteries of human existence, we’re willing to bet that earthside, you’d be leaving behind quite a few bereft friends and family members. How will they remember you? Smart, funny, horrible at Jenga? A sharp dresser who always mispronounced “epitome”? And then there’s the question of how they’ll remember you: with an austere traditional ceremony featuring Gregorian chants? Or how about a joyous affair complete with streamers, piñatas, and a bespoke urn launched into outer space?
From playlists of Lana Del Rey to a classical string quartet, when it comes to funeral vibes these days, the options are endless. And while contemplating your own end-of-life ceremony doesn’t exactly scream fun, it’s important to acknowledge that these rituals offer grieving loved ones a chance to connect and honour your legacy. Beyond the soundtrack and the dress code, however, there’s another important factor to consider: budget. Yes, that’s right, these things cost money. Exactly how much? You might be surprised.
Cost of dying crisis?
In Canada, the average funeral costs $9,1501, a sum that’s highly variable depending on where the ceremony is held and what it consists of. When it comes to location, for example, Ontarians draw the short end of the stick with the highest funeral costs in the country—as much as $12,000 for basic services. Quebec has some of the lowest costs in Canada, but even so, the bereaved should expect to pay $4,500 or more for a no-frills send-off.2 The type of funeral you have makes a difference, too, as cremation is typically less expensive than a traditional burial. (For reference, shooting your cremains into deep space will run you $12,995 USD3.)
Crowdsourcing your send-off
If all this seems like a lot of money for what sounds like a pretty bad day, you’re not wrong. At 12 grand, your own funeral could be one of the largest single expenses of your, um, “lifetime,” alongside a wedding or a downpayment on a car or home. Costs of funeral services are so high that more and more Canadians are turning to crowdfunding websites to help shoulder the financial burden. According to GoFundMe’s Year in Help report, their biggest growth category in Canada last year was for “Fundraising for Family Causes,” including memorials, up 40% from 2023.4
The majority of those looking for this kind of financial assistance are millennials. Almost 20% of U.S. adults aged 20-39, for example, report that they’d use online crowdfunding for end-of-life arrangements, compared to just 4% of those over 40.5
GoFundMe’s biggest growth category in Canada last year was for “Fundraising for Family Causes,” including memorials, up 40% from 2023.
While it’s heartwarming to think of a community coming together to help those in need—GoFundMe reports that more than $330 million is raised on the site every year6—less encouraging is the unreliability of this type of crowdfunding. In fact, recent estimates suggest that only 17% of U.S. GoFundMe campaigns meet their goal.7 More troubling: a 2021 study showed that the most successful campaigns have less to do with need, and more—much more—to do with access: “Crowdfunding was most effective [for campaigners] with both high levels of education and high incomes.”8 (The message here is mixed: with so many lawyers in your social network, odds are better than most that your friends and loved ones would run a successful campaign. But do you want them running a campaign?)
#mortality
So, to recap: Best-case scenario is that your funeral goes viral, the campaign doubles its goal, and you’re featured on the local news. Worst-case scenario is that the campaign flounders. Desperate to drum up enthusiasm amongst the sea of equally worthy fundraisers, your loved ones create donation tiers: for $10, grievers get first dibs on the leftover muffins; for $25, they can slip a photo of themselves into the memorial slideshow; and for $50, they’re entered into a draw to deliver your eulogy. It’s not a situation anyone would want for their loved ones in what’s already bound to be a horrible time.
Luckily, there’s another way: life insurance. Your life insurance payout doesn’t depend on click rates, headlines, how many animals you’ve adopted, or how sympathetic you look in pictures. In a way, term life insurance also operates on the principle of crowdfunding. Policyholders across Canada contribute premiums into a pooled fund, which is used to provide benefits to families when the unexpected happens. Unlike crowd-funding, however, life insurance offers certainty, and when the time comes to make a claim, your loved ones will have a qualified advisor to guide them through the process, no marketing skills required.
Desperate times call for careful planning
High end-of-life costs are an unfortunate reality that many young people or those without dependents may not factor into their life insurance decisions. When we’re young, we tend not to think about bad things happening to us, and for those without kids, a spouse, or mortgage to worry about, it’s easy to brush off the need for life insurance altogether. Afterall, with the price of butter these days, why should it cost you money just to die? Well, it doesn’t—not exactly. But things like cremations, caskets, funeral processions? These don’t come cheap. Without a plan to cover these expenses, you risk leaving the people you love in the difficult position of paying out of pocket or compromising on the quality of ceremonies necessary to their grieving process. It’s not a situation we’d wish on anyone because, jokes aside, you matter. Your life—the people you’ve helped, the trips you’ve taken, the relationships you’ve built—is worthy of a proper send-off, one where the people who love you have the opportunity to honour your memory with dignity.
We can help.
Ask your advisor about the crowd-funded policy you can count on: life insurance.
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Sources: 1. Dignity Memorial, “How much does a funeral cost?” 2. Waggfuneralhome.com, “Navigating the financial aspects of funeral services in Canada,” October 15, 2024 3. Celestis.com, Memorial Spaceflights, Experiences and Pricing 4. GoFundMe.com, “Year in Help 2024.” 5. Famic.org, “New study shows Americans recognize the role of memorialization in healthy healing following the death of a loved one.” 6. CNBC, “As the cost of dying rises, more families try crowdfunding for funerals,” December 7, 2019. 7. The Conversation, “What GoFundMe conceals: the campaigns that fail,” July 24, 2024 8. Science Direct, “Crowdfunding as a response to COVID 19: increasing inequities at a time of crisis,” Mark Igra et al., 2021
