Funeral planning can be stressful, especially if the loss of a loved one is unexpected due to an accident.  To complicate matters, we find too many families have not set aside enough financial resources to pay for proper funeral expense.  As a result, they opt for the less expensive route, cremation.

At Florida Victims Service, we can discuss your eligibility to have your funeral costs picked up and allow you to pay last respects to your loved one. *We understand this is a difficult and confusing period for those responsible for arranging and scheduling a traditional funeral.  It will be no doubt you will be very busy, but it is important not to get overwhelmed.

The following is a checklist you should follow to help you organize the process and ensure clear decision-making.

• Begin contacting close relatives at this point. Plan what you’re going to say before you make the phone call.  You can never be sure of how each person will react to news of a death.
• Get copies of the death certificate to make other legal arrangements easier. You’ll need to go to banks and credit card companies to freeze accounts and assets until they can be dealt with at a later time.
• Stay on top of all decisions so you don’t fall into many of the difficulties involved in funeral planning.
• Writing an obituary is an important part of funeral planning. It’s a fairly simple process, though you can be original and creative if you’re so inclined. It’s becoming quite popular to make obituaries into creative pieces of public memorial.

An obituary can be very basic, including only the essential facts about a person’s life, such as the names of children, grandchildren and spouse, the career of the deceased, their interests and fascinations and perhaps a favorite sacred verse. On the other hand, an obituary can also be very personal, warm and unique.

*Some restrictions apply (excluded are: deaths occurring during the commission of a crime)