We know that you can search the web and find any number of free pre-planning questionnaires.  So why pay us $49 to get ours?  

We know that you can visit your local funeral home and they will have a pre-planning questionnaire that they will keep on file for you.  So why pay us $49 to get ours?

Good questions, but we've got some good answers.

First, the free forms you'll find online and the forms your local funeral home has available deal only and exclusively with your funeral and burial wishes.  These considerations are commonly-known as your “Final Arrangements.”  They are concerned with the type of casket you want your relatives to buy, or what kind of urn you'd like them to purchase if you choose cremation.  Or maybe they have a commercial relationship with the local cemetery and they can profit if you buy your plot through them. But all of their questions generally deal with your funeral: how you'd like to be dressed in your casket, what faith service you'd like, whether you want a service at a church or at the funeral home or gravesite, all questions like that.

But we are very different.  We have absolutely nothing to sell you but our pre-planning service.  We don't sell caskets or urns, or anything else. Our pre-planning questionnaire is far more thorough than just asking for your funeral wishes. 

Read: OUR MOST FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS and ANSWERS.

But not only does our questionnaire go into far more topics, as discussed below, but you get the added benefit of having it stored and accessible online, so that you can make as many changes, and as often, as you want.  Contrast this to the paper questionnaires you’ll get at many funeral homes, which often only cover Final Arrangements, but which require you to make an appointment every time you need to make changes.  Suppose, for instance, that you decide to change your listing of suggested pallbearers, or you want to change your suggested obituary in some way, or maybe you want to change the church or the pastor, you can do this online at any time at FamilyAndHeirs.com – there’s no need to call the funeral home, make an appointment, come in on the scheduled day, meet with the Funeral Director, have him or her pull your file from the filing cabinet, and sit there and make the changes, and then do this all again when you want to change something else.

On our online Questionnaire, we start out by asking about whether you have completed a Durable Power of Attorney or a Power of Attorney for Health Care, whether you have an Advance Directive for medical care, and more questions, including whether you’ve given a Power of Attorney to anyone. 

Of course, we ask all the “funeral” questions, questions seeking your preferences for type of funeral or other memorial, whether you want to be buried or cremated, cemetery location or urn niche, who should officiate, and many, many more questions, many of which you may never have considered, and which are not asked on most pre-planning forms.

We ask if you have a Will or Trust, and the date of the current version, and where the original signed document can be located.  Of course, you can upload your Will or Trust to our Secure Document Storage, so that it will be immediately available to your family.  We'll ask the name of your lawyer, if you have one, and the name of your funeral director, if you have one.  

Our Questionnaire also covers all your assets and your insurance, with detailed questions, including where you have bank and stock accounts, the real estate you own, and whether you have any Public Storage spaces, and safe deposit boxes. 

You’ll also be able to add any information you want, including any special thoughts, or your wishes that certain things go to certain people. Please understand that writing, “I’d like the piano to go to my daughter, Cathy,” does not have any legally binding authority – you’d need to write it into your Will or Trust to be sure – but it does tell your family your wishes, and they can certainly agree to honor those wishes.

We’ll also inquire about any charities to which you wish to make donations, provide a listing of the people who will need to be notified, including your lawyer and doctors, and accountant/tax preparer, insurance agent, and others.

And we’ll ask about re-homing your faithful dog or loving cat.  Or what do you want for the future of your business?

We also have heritage questions, things you'd like to be sure the next generation knows, like where the family originally came from, and how they got here, where they settled, how they succeeded.  Perhaps you have famous ancestors who served as mayors, judges, or were military heroes or beloved doctors or respected lawyers, architects, engineers, or inventors.  Perhaps there are some wonderful family stories you'd like the younger generations to know, or even a few delicious family recipes.  

The answers to these questions won't be found in anyone's Will or Trust.  So even though you have a Will or Trust, you'll need to answers these questions and convey those answers to your family.  Your family may know you want everything to go to your spouse, or maybe half to your spouse and half to your kids, but do they have any idea what you want written on your grave marker?  Do they have any idea that you'd like a certain hymn sung?,  or an old story you'd like shared in the eulogy?  

Do they know what rehoming you'd like for your faithful dog or loving cat?  We ask all these questions and many more.  If there are any that you choose not to answer, that's entirely ok.  Maybe you don't have any military heroes in your past, but you sure have a wonderful recipe that the family always enjoyed at Thanksgiving dinners or on Christmas Day.  

On FamilyAndHeirs.com, the Pre-Planning Questionnaire is only part of the information package you will be leaving for your family.  We also provide Secure Document Storage, where you can upload all the vital documents your family will need to have, like your Will or Trust, your Deed or Lease, Your Marriage Certificate (or Divorce Decree), your Military DD214.  You can even upload some special letters or photographs.  

OK, so you have your Will or Trust with your lawyer, so why do you need to put that information in your secure area on FamilyAndHeir's website? Well, for one, you last visited your lawyer 15-20 years ago, and when you're gone no one will know what lawyer you went to.  They can scrounge through your stacks of paperwork and your files and maybe they'll find a Will, but will they find the latest one, or one that you replaced years ago?    

Everyone should, of course, ask all our pre-planning questions to their dad or grandma, but they just don’t.  It’s too difficult a conversation to have.  It’s just too awkward to say, “Let’s sit down and talk about what happens when you die.”  Everyone knows they need to do it, but there is never a good time.  And if you can get a few questions in, the conversation will soon turn to other subjects, and most of your questions will go unanswered. Relieve yourself of this difficult conversation by letting us ask the questions.  

That’s why you either need to open an account yourself, or your kids or grandkids need to give you a FamilyAndHeirs.com Gift Certificate.  Either way, it’s just $49 to open an account.  

But it's not just having access to a very complete and thought-out series of questions, but it's also the ability to go online and change anything at any time.  It's 2 a.m., and you decide to add your friend Phil to the pallbearers list, or you think, wouldn't it be nice to give my saxophone to my grandson Jimmy who is showing so much musical promise, or maybe you've just thought of a wonderful old family story about coming over from the “old country,” or you've had some thoughts you'd like to share when you're gone.  The ability to make changes at any time – you need no repeated appointments with the funeral director  –  is well worth the money.

But where we also differ – and in this aspect we shine – is that when you open your account, you'll get two different passwords.  Your Account Password will allow you to enter your information, your documents, your photographs, your answers to our questionnaire, and your second password, a Read-Only Password that you will provide to your trusted heirs, will allow them to read the questions and answers and have immediate access to your papers, photos, and whatever documents you uploaded.  But while they can read your answers and view your documents, those with the Read-Only Password cannot change anything.

We know you are concerned about putting your private information online.  But we've built our website to allow only those with one of your two passwords to be able to view your data.  Our site was custom built, using custom code.  This is not a WordPress or Wix website builder project.  It literally took years to build and launch this site. One of the specifications we demanded from our developers what that we (we who own and run the website) have no way to view any of our Account Holder's personal information.  We can view only their names, addresses, and account information (payment, term, etc.), but we can't get into their private information that they have placed on the site for only their heirs to see.  We believe your information is your information and that it's none of our business.  But in any case, don't put anything online that you fear could be purloined by evil hackers.  We've taken every precaution against hackers, and we're using a very secure managed and dedicated server, and while we think we can't be hacked, we obviously can't guarantee that.  But what we can say is that everything is stored in encrypted form and even if a hacker got through, he'd simply find an encrypted jumble of information.  Just the same, while we see no problem saying that you've got bank accounts at the Bank of America and Wells Fargo, we always recommend that you do not include the account numbers, and we must insist that you never put any of your online credentials on our site.  But what you can do on our site is to say that your online credentials are on the top shelf of your safe and that Tommy has the combination, or even that the online credentials are known by Tommy.    

Over the years, we've seen many loved ones pass, and the loved ones of friends, relatives and acquaintances pass, and the common theme has always been, “I wish I could get just ten minutes with him (or with her).  I suddenly have so many questions.”  Complete our Pre-Planning Questionnaire, upload your important documents and special photos, give your Read-Only password to your trusted family members, and you'll know you've given them the answers that they will need when you're gone.