Few eligible families have sought federal payment of COVID funeral expenses

Around the time the Delta variant began to take hold in the United States, the funeral home in Temple, Penn., was marked off to encourage social distancing.

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In August of 2020, two caskets sat by holes in the ground at a small graveside service in Travelers Rest, S.C.

The family lost a mother and father to cancer.

Allison Leaver lives in Maryland with her husband and kids.

It was a sad time when Leaver's parents died. There was no life insurance or burial policy to help with the expense.

The public school teacher said that they were going to have to put that on their credit cards and pay it off.

The story was produced by Kaiser Health News.

In April of 2021, FEMA offered to reimburse funeral expenses up to $9,000, which is roughly the average cost of a funeral. It was retroactive.

Leaver applied immediately.

She says that if this horrible thing had to happen, at least we weren't going to be out the cash for it.

The federal government has paid more than $2 billion to cover funeral costs for COVID victims. More than 300,000 families have been reimbursed. Less than half of families have started applications.

Many surviving family members don't know the money is available.

For those who know

4,000 contractors were hired in Denver by FEMA. Applications are not accepted online, so survivors must call to start the process. The first day, FEMA received a million calls.

The death certificates and receipts from the funeral home and cemetery were assembled by Leaver after she talked to a representative. She uploaded them and didn't hear anything for months.

She discovered that the receipts she submitted had different signatures, one from her husband and another from her sister. That was a problem. In order to get the full amount per parent, the government required separate receipts. Leaver says she was frustrated but determined to get it done and she had time.

Many have not applied or have not had time to do so.

The deaths of loved ones early in the Pandemic have discouraged some people from participating.

She says that some people with death certificates didn't necessarily have Cause of death listed.

FEMA is trying to work with everyone. She says there is a new pot of money from the American Rescue Plan Act.

For those who don't know

FEMA's data was compared to official COVID deaths. Washington, D.C. had the most applications for deaths. The states of the South had the highest participation rate in the program. Some states are below a 50% participation rate. Less than one in three deaths resulted in an application.

It is not a question of eligibility. Income limits and life insurance do not preclude participation. There is no deadline. If a funeral was pre-paid, it is one of the few disqualifiers.

We need people to help us get the word out.

There is plenty of money left in the program so FEMA is launching an outreach campaign. Efforts are being made to target vulnerable populations in the populous states of California, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

The government leans on community groups that are connected to people who need to know about the money.

Chris Kocher is the founder of Caval Survivors for Change, which helps people navigate the process.

He says that they were able to connect people to survivors who had already been through the process.

Many need someone to complete the application for them.

Smith's father was killed by COVID. Her mother had no chance.

Smith says that she is a very smart, spunky lady, but she has never used a computer.

Applying requires scanning or faxing.

She says that she probably wouldn't have tried to do it because the process would have been too much for her.

Smith was able to jump through the hoops. She says that $9,000 will make life easier for her mom as she adjusts to being a widower.

This story came from the partnership between NPR and Nashville Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.