Regulating the funeral plans sector

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[1] (AR) of a principal firm.

Other pages in this section explain how to:

• appoint intermediaries as ARs[2] if you’re a funeral plan provider
• become an AR[3] if you’re a funeral plan intermediary

If you’re not authorised by us yet

Find out when and how to apply[4]. 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)[5] 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[9].

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.

FSCS funding class limit

In PS21/8[15] and PS21/15[11] we confirmed that Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection would commence upon regulation of funeral plan providers. 

The FSCS funding class limit for funeral plan providers was set at a provisional £5m given the uncertainty about the number of firms that would become authorised, their collective ability to meet FSCS costs, and the cost of liabilities which could arise from firms in this class. To date, no liabilities have arisen. 

We said in PS21/8 we would review whether the current limit remains appropriate. So that we can conduct an informed analysis based on at least 3 years’ worth of regulatory data, we plan to complete that review by the end of 2026.