Burial Insurance for Poor Immigrants

By A. G. Sulzberger

When he recalls the blur of events that followed the death of his 14-year-old son in Queens from an accidental shooting six years ago, Ivan Echeverry can still feel the smothering shame of having to go cap in hand to raise money for the cremation and funeral. Mr. Echeverry was an immigrant from Medellín, Colombia, working as a construction laborer — and broke.

The bind he faced is common among New York’s immigrant poor. In Jackson Heights, business owners say that at least once a week, someone drops by asking for donations to pay for a funeral here, like that of Mr. Echeverry’s son, or a flight to carry the body back home — expenses that can amount to several thousand dollars.

But a company created by four prominent funeral businesses in Colombia has come up with an alternative that appears to be unusual among immigrant groups in New York: burial insurance for all those costs.

The insurance, with rates starting at $4.12 per person per month, is available to both legal and illegal immigrants from Colombia and covers many post-mortem expenses, including picking up the body, transporting it — or the cremated ashes — by plane to Colombia, and helping to arrange a funeral service and burial in that country or in the United States. It also provides paperwork for American officials, including a death certificate and an embalming report. [NYT]