The High Cost of Living and Dying

×

Expand

Photo: allanswart - Getty Images

Casket on grave

When my father died in 1995, my mother spent a lot of time getting her thoughts and documents together preparing for her own ultimate demise. She created a “Death Box” which she believed contained all the information necessary for a comfortable and economical passing. It didn’t, but it was a good start.

When her time came in 2016 at age 94, we pretty much knew what she wanted – cremation, no casket or fancy funeral and a social gathering afterwards for friends and family. In 2012 we enrolled her in The Neptune Society, a nationwide cremation firm serving U.S. veterans. (Mom was an Army nurse in World War II.) We thought we were ready.

On that fateful August day, after notifying family members that she had died, we called The Neptune Society. The firm had ceased its Wisconsin operations several years earlier. Fortunately, they had contracted with several funeral homes to fulfill the contracts they had written. A nice man and his assistant came to manage the next steps, including removing my mother’s body, filing a death certificate, arranging for cremation and returning the ashes to us so she could be interred next to my father at Wisconsin Memorial Park in Brookfield. Her Neptune Society plan and internment costs totaled less than $5,000.

Mom got away pretty cheaply. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost of dying in the U.S. is $19,566. It’s cheaper in a state like Mississippi ($15,516) but more expensive in Hawaii ($36,124). The run-up to that day also is quite pricey.

Currently, 10 percent of all U.S. health care expenditures cover end-of-life care. In 2018, expenditures totaled $3.65 trillion, meaning $365 billion went for those who died. The average person spends more on health care during his or her last years than all previous years combined. According to Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, costs during the last month of life can total up to $32,379 for hospital care and $17,845 for hospice care. Much of the cost is covered by Medicare, but not all of it. Private insurance, including life and health insurance, plays a big role in picking up the balance of those costs.

Those costs differ from person to person based on circumstances. According to the American Journal of Palliative and Hospice Care, 48 percent of deaths occur while in hospice care. Those who die in hospitals total 24.6 percent (inpatient) and 16.4 percent (outpatient). Only 4.8 percent die in a nursing home or similar facility, the rest at home or under visiting medical care. Costs vary as much as do the circumstances of death.

Life is a costly business, and death doesn’t come cheaply either. Plan ahead and become a disciplined financial steward and you may make it to the end. For those set on a traditional approach, the average burial plot in Wisconsin is $2,568, which is 28 percent more affordable than the rest of the country. (Cremation costs average $1,045 in the state.) Add to that the roughly $15,000 in funeral costs with all the trimmings, and in most cases you can still get by for under $20,000.

Before you reach that point, you need to make sure your documents, like ducks, are all in a row. These would include:

• A will prepared by an attorney will go a long way in smoothing out many of the speed bumps to settling your estate and avoiding probate. If your estate is substantial you may want to create a living trust, which will enable you to better manage your assets while you are still alive.

• Appoint a power of attorney and health care power of attorney to handle your affairs prior to your death and after. They can be the same person, but since these are legally defined positions the proper paperwork must be signed and witnessed. As part of end-of-life health care goes, advanced directives can clearly state how you want that final care managed.

Mom was set with most of these and what she didn’t have we knew enough to provide. Costs for her five-year health decline was mostly covered by Medicare, supplemental insurance, and long-term care insurance that provided for safe housing and a social atmosphere. Despite some unexpected expenses, no major medical bills came along to decimate her savings or ours.

Mom would been pleased that her passing came in well under the average costs. What none of us knew was that, as a veteran, she qualified for a full military funeral complete with a 21-gun salute. If asked, she would have decried it as “too much fuss,” but by that time she didn’t have a choice.

Frankly, if she was looking down from the afterlife on that day, I think she probably loved it.