What is the Funeral Expenses Payment and how much does it cover?

Full answer

The Funeral Payment can provide crucial help at a difficult time, but its "recovery from the estate" feature is often misunderstood, and claimants should be clear about how this works before relying on it as pure, non-repayable financial support. **Who can claim** To qualify, the claimant must be responsible for arranging the funeral (this does not have to be a spouse or close relative -- it can be any responsible person, though there are rules about being the "nearest relative" in some circumstances) and must be receiving a qualifying means-tested benefit, such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, or Working Tax Credit including a disability element. **What the payment covers** The payment covers the necessary costs of a burial (including the cost of a burial plot and, in some cases, associated fees) or cremation (including the cremation fee and the cost of the doctor's certificates required), plus other associated costs such as reasonable transport for the coffin and mourners over a certain distance, and up to a set additional capped amount (currently a fixed sum) towards other funeral expenses such as a coffin, flowers, or funeral director's fees. If the actual total cost of the funeral is significantly higher than the amount the Funeral Payment covers (which is common, since UK funeral costs have risen substantially and often exceed the capped additional contribution by a wide margin), the claimant remains responsible for paying the shortfall themselves. **Recovery from the deceased's estate** Critically, if the person who died left an estate (money, property, or other assets), the DWP will generally recover the amount of the Funeral Payment from that estate before it is distributed to beneficiaries -- this means the payment often functions similarly to an interest-free advance against the estate, rather than a payment the claimant simply keeps without any need to account for it, if the deceased did leave assets. If the deceased left no estate (or an estate too small to cover the payment), the Funeral Payment is not recovered and the claimant keeps the full amount without repayment. **Timing of the claim** A claim must generally be made within a specific time limit after the funeral has taken place (commonly within 6 months), and it is possible to apply before the funeral has happened in some circumstances to help with planning, though the payment itself is usually made once the funeral has been arranged and evidence of the costs provided. **Why funeral costs often still create financial pressure** Because UK funeral costs (particularly burial, which is generally more expensive than cremation) have risen substantially in recent years, and the Funeral Payment's capped contribution towards non-essential costs has not always kept pace with this rise, many claimants still find a significant gap between what the Funeral Payment covers and the actual total cost of a typical funeral, requiring the claimant to find the difference from their own resources, other family contributions, or sometimes a funeral plan/insurance policy the deceased had already arranged. **Worked example** A Universal Credit claimant arranges a cremation funeral for her late mother, who left a modest estate consisting mainly of £3,000 in a savings account. She successfully claims the Funeral Payment, which covers the cremation fee, doctor's certificate costs, and the capped additional contribution towards the funeral director's other charges -- a total Funeral Payment award of, say, £1,800. Because her mother's estate contains £3,000, the DWP recovers the £1,800 Funeral Payment from that estate once it is administered, meaning the daughter effectively received an interest-free advance to cover the funeral costs upfront, rather than a payment that reduced the estate's ultimate value to other beneficiaries by less than the amount actually paid out. **Practical tip** Before assuming the Funeral Payment will fully or permanently cover funeral costs, check whether the deceased left any estate, since this materially affects whether the payment will later be recovered, and budget for the likely shortfall between the capped Funeral Payment contribution and the realistic total cost of the funeral being arranged.

Try the calculator