Forethought funeral insurance — what it is and who holds it now
Direct Life Advisors is an independent life insurance agency, not an insurance company, and is not affiliated with any insurer mentioned here.
Forethought is a name that has moved. Policies sold under it were written by a company in the preneed and funeral-funding business, and that business has changed hands and changed names more than once.
If you are holding paperwork with that name on it, the first job is establishing which company is responsible for the contract today.
Talk it through with a licensed agent.
Fifteen minutes, no charge — we'll tell you which product your answers qualify for and what it costs, across several carriers at once.
(888) 753-8706No cost to you. We're paid a commission by the insurance company only if you later buy through us — never by you.
Preneed funding is not the same as a life insurance policy you own
Preneed funeral funding works differently from an ordinary life insurance policy, and the difference decides what your family can do with the money.
A preneed contract is tied to a funeral home and to an arrangement — a specific casket, a specific service, a specific provider. The policy funds that arrangement. It is not a cash payment to your family that they can spend as they choose.
An ordinary life insurance policy pays cash to a named beneficiary. The beneficiary can spend it on a funeral, or on the mortgage, or on nothing at all.
People who believe they own the second thing and actually own the first find out at the worst possible moment.
The questions that establish what you have
Read the contract for these, in this order:
- Is this a preneed contract tied to a named funeral home, or a life insurance policy with a named beneficiary?
- If it is preneed, is the price guaranteed — meaning the home has agreed to provide the arrangement whatever it costs later — or is it a fixed sum against a future bill?
- Does the contract move if the family uses a different funeral home?
- Is there a limited benefit period, and has it expired?
- Which company is servicing it today, and at what address?
Question two is where most of the money is. A guaranteed-price contract holds its value against decades of inflation. A fixed-sum contract does not.
What the coverage has to cover
The National Funeral Directors Association's 2023 General Price List Study, released 8 December 2023, put the median funeral with viewing and burial at $8,300 and a cremation with viewing at $6,280. Neither figure includes the cemetery plot, the grave marker, or cash-advance items such as flowers and the obituary, and both are 2023 figures. NFDA news release, 8 December 2023.
A separate NFDA publication, its 2025 Cremation & Burial Report, puts the US cremation rate at 63.4%. That report is sold rather than published in full, so the figure is quoted from it and is not linked here.
Set a death benefit against those two figures and the arithmetic does the arguing. A $10,000 policy covers a cremation with money left over; it covers a burial only until the plot and the marker are added. That is the number worth deciding first, because everything else on this page is priced against it.
If the paperwork is old
Contracts in this part of the industry change hands often, and the company named on a twenty-year-old certificate is rarely the company administering it now. That does not put the contract at risk — an acquisition does not cancel anything — but it does mean the phone number printed on the document is dead.
We keep a record of which companies took over which blocks, and we will trace yours with you.
Talk to someone independent
Direct Life Advisors is an independent agency with 52 carrier relationships. A licensed agent will read the contract with you — the product name, the face amount, and whether a limited benefit period applies — and tell you what it means. At no charge to you. We're paid a commission by the insurance company only if you later buy through us — never by you.