Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Warning For UK Consumers – Your Funeral Investments Are Subject To Regulation!

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The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) informed that pre-paid funeral plans industry comes under its regulation. From 29 July 2022, any funeral plan provider that isn’t authorized by the UK regulator will be committing a criminal offense if it sells or administers a funeral plan contract. Unregulated providers won’t be allowed to deliver the service you have paid for – a funeral. Currently, 24 firms are on the FCA list holding approximately 87% of existing customer plans. Customers of regulated firms customers have access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), so their money is protected if the firm fails.  

The FCA instructs consumers that if they have a funeral plan, or are thinking about buying one, they should check the provider’s FCA application status before July 2022, as they may need to take action. Below are the FCA instructions:

  • Search for the provider on the FCA website (here) to find out what its status is.
  • If you have a plan and your provider hasn’t applied for authorisation yet, or isn’t going to apply for authorisation, they should contact you to tell you what’s happening with your plan. If you haven’t heard from your provider, contact them.
  • If you’re buying a new plan before our regulation begins, don’t buy a plan from a provider if its status is, ‘not applying for authorisation’, ‘application refused’ or ‘application withdrawn’ (find out more in the table below).

Your provider might be a different company from the one that sold you the plan. For example, a funeral director may have sold you a plan that is administered by a different funeral plan provider. Find out who the provider is by looking at your paperwork or by contacting the organization that sold you the plan.