One thing we found with our previous relatives who died - you can't always get to their money (for funeral's, etc.) immediately. in one case, my wife was her aunts sole beneficiary, had all Powers of XXX, was the only person listed in her will, had her "Conservator and Guardianship" (the aunt had Alzheimer's and was incapacitated), had signing privileges on all her accounts, etc. You would think all that would pretty well cover things. But when she died and my wife tried to withdraw funds for the funeral, no dice. She was blocked 100% by the banks. We paid for the funeral out of our pocket. Eventually getting reimbursed later when the inheritance was finally made available to my wife.

Lesson learned by us. If you are legally set up to withdraw funds from your relatives accounts, and need those funds to pay for their funeral, withdraw what you need VERY QUICKLY after death, before the banks put a freeze on it, even though the money is technically yours.

We were fine paying for a funeral out of our pocket. They're ridiculously expensive, but being older ourselves, we had the cash. I know my kids would not have the temporary funds to pay for my wife and I's funerals. Hopefully all the assets we put into a trust for the kids would work, but who knows - some stupid bank may freeze up the trust for a while. Pre-paid funerals may be the way to go, but we haven't set that up yet.