On a humid August afternoon in 2020, two caskets — one silver, one white — sat by holes in the ground at a small, graveside service in the town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina.
The family had just lost a mom and dad, both to COVID-19.
“They died five days apart,” said Allison Leaver, their daughter who now lives in Maryland with her husband and kids.
When Leaver’s parents died that summer, it was a crushing tragedy. And there was no life insurance or burial policy to help with the expense.
“We just figured we were just going to have to put that on our credit cards and pay it off, and that’s how we were going to deal with that,” Leaver, a public school teacher, said with a laugh of resignation.
But then, in April 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered to reimburse funeral expenses for COVID victims — up to $9,000, which is roughly the average cost of a funeral. And the assistance was retroactive.
Leaver applied immediately.
“If this horrible thing had to happen, at least we weren’t going to be out the cash for it,” she said.
A year into the program, the federal government has paid more than $2 billion to cover funeral costs for people who die of COVID. More than 300,000 families have received reimbursement, averaging $6,500. But fewer than half of eligible families have started applications, and FEMA said there is no limit on the funding available at this time.
Many surviving family members have run into challenges or don’t know the money is still available.
FEMA launched a massive call center to manage applications, hiring 4,000 contractors in Denver. Survivors must call to initiate the process, as applications are not accepted online. FEMA received a million calls on the first day, leaving many people waiting on hold.
Once Leaver talked to a representative, she started assembling the death certificates and receipts from the funeral home and cemetery. She uploaded them online — and heard nothing for months.
Eventually, she called and learned that one problem was that the receipts she submitted had different signatures — one was her husband’s, another her sister’s. And although it was a joint funeral, to get the full amount per parent, the government required separate receipts for each parent’s funeral. Leaver said she was frustrated, but determined to get it done “come hell or high water.” Plus, she said, it was summer break, and she had time.
But many other eligible families haven’t applied or say they don’t have time.
Clerical challenges have discouraged participation, especially for those whose loved ones died early in the pandemic, said Jaclyn Rothenberg, FEMA’s chief spokesperson.
“Some people with death certificates didn’t necessarily have COVID listed as the cause of death,” she said. “We do have a responsibility to our taxpayer stewards to make sure that that is, in fact, the cause.”
Rothenberg said FEMA is trying to resolve everyone’s problems. Even though the agency has spent the $2 billion initially budgeted, she said there’s a new pot of stimulus funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.
