This page is about the rules. The price of a plan, and how it compares with funeral insurance or a funeral bond, are other questions, and this page leaves them aside.
The rules, side by side
| State | Cooling-off | Where the money goes | Also required |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 30 days. “Generally, you can cancel the contract within the cooling-off period without incurring a financial penalty.” | To a funeral fund registered with NSW Fair Trading, within 10 days. Registered funds must invest the money in secure investments and lodge annual reports. | Before you sign, information on each part of the contract and its cost, and on the services it does not cover. |
| Victoria | – | Invested, other than administration or brokerage fees and GST: cash within three business days, other payments within seven. Investments are limited to certain friendly-society funeral benefit funds and certain life insurance company policies or funds. | Before signing, disclosure in writing of where and how the money will be invested and any fees. A written contract stating the service, the goods and the total cost, and receipts for every payment. |
| Queensland | 30 days, automatic. Cancel in writing; the provider may keep a $50 cancellation fee and must refund the rest within 7 days (as at October 2026). | – | A written agreement with a “client care statement”, completed and given to you before you sign. |
| Western Australia | From signing until 30 days after the client receives a signed copy of the contract. Ending it in writing in that time brings a refund of everything paid, less any administration fee the contract sets for ending it. | Within 16 days to an investment manager (a life insurance company, friendly society, licensed trustee company or the Public Trustee), in the client’s name, released after the agreed funeral has been carried out. | The Prepaid Funerals Code of Practice binds every contract made since 1 March 2021. The cost is fixed unless both parties agree to a change. |
| South Australia | – | South Australia’s Law Handbook, last revised 2014, says the money “must be held in trust”. That may not be the current rule. | – |
In the ACT, Access Canberra’s fair trading and consumer rights pages are the place to start.
Does it include the cremation itself?
Not always, and this is the question most worth asking. NSW Fair Trading notes that some funeral directors limit prepaid schemes to the parts of the funeral they control, such as their own services and the coffin, and that “this might not include the burial or cremation.”
In Perth, the cremation can be paid for separately. The Metropolitan Cemeteries Board sells cremation agreements, which are “in effect, prepayment of the fee for cremation”. They can be bought directly from the Board and handed to the funeral director at the time of need. They do not expire, they cannot be transferred, and the fee includes time in a chapel at one of the Board’s cemeteries.
What the contract should answer
Western Australia’s Prepaid Funerals Code of Practice (clause 7) requires every prepaid contract to say what happens to the payments if any of these occurs. They are useful questions to put to any plan, in any state.
- The funeral organiser stops trading before the contract is performed, including through bankruptcy or insolvency.
- The funeral organiser “is unable to perform the contract for any reason”.
- Payments are not made in full and on time.
- The person the funeral is for moves somewhere the services can no longer be provided, such as outside the state.
- The client walks away from the contract without a right in it that allows them to.
- The person the funeral is for dies before a payment due under the contract is made.
Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading adds its own: ask for a copy of the contract before you sign, take it away to consider, don’t be rushed, and seek advice from a lawyer or financial adviser.
Keep the papers where they will be found
A plan only helps if the family knows it exists. Queensland suggests giving copies of prepayment contracts, insurance, funeral bonds and self-insurance arrangements to a family member and filing them with your will. NSW Fair Trading’s guide begins its advice to families with the same step in reverse: first find out whether the person pre-arranged their funeral, in their home papers or their will.