Regulating the funeral plans sector

We regulate pre-paid funeral plans, which means any funeral plan provider or intermediary must be authorised by us. Find out what this means for your firm.

Funeral plan:

  • providers are firms that enter into and administer funeral plan contracts (including those sold before the firm was regulated by us)
  • intermediaries are firms that sell funeral plans to customers on behalf of providers (eg funeral directors, will writers and lead generators)

If you undertake any of these activities, you must either be directly authorised by us or be an appointed representative (AR) of a principal firm.

Other pages in this section explain how to:

To sell pre-paid funeral plans without appropriate authorisation (unless you’re an exempt person, such as a solicitor) is a criminal offence.  

If you’re not authorised by us yet

Find out when and how to apply. to us for authorisation to become a pre-paid funeral plans firm.

If you’re already authorised by us

If you want to start conducting activities regarding pre-paid funeral plans, you’ll need to apply for a variation of permission (VoP) to:

  • add one or more new regulated activities to your existing permissions, or
  • add the investment type ‘funeral plan contract’ to the scope of your existing permissions

Reporting requirements after you’re authorised

Once you become authorised by us, you’ll need to submit the following regulatory returns to us each year:

  • quarterly conduct returns (funeral plan providers only)
  • 6-monthly prudential returns
  • an annual complaints return

Read more in Chapter 7 of our policy statement.

If you’re an AR, you should discuss your reporting requirements with your selected principal firm.

Why we regulate funeral plans

We aim to achieve good outcomes for consumers. We want to make sure that the products offered by firms: 

  • meet consumer needs 
  • offer fair value 

We also want to make sure that firms look after consumers’ money and use it to deliver funeral services.

Page updates

: Editorial amendment
: Information changed Information updated as part of website refresh
: Editorial amendment page updated as part of website refresh
: Information changed Updates to page following regulation on 29 July.
: Information added Policy statement added to page.
: Information added Application time frames.
: Information added applications open for authorisation
: Editorial amendment
: Information added What you need to do
: Information added Date clarified '1 November'.