Pet funerals

You feed them, play with them and love them throughout their life - sometimes more than you love your boyfriend - and now more and more pet owners are caring for their furry friends beyond the grave. To make sure the funds are there to give your pet the send-off they deserve, get them covered with pet insurance, which can help with the cost of pet funerals.

One lady who took her love for her pet to extremes was American billionaire Leona Helmsley who made headlines last year when she left her Maltese dog $12 million in her will. Meanwhile, she cut out two grandchildren. She created a trust fund for Trouble and requested that when the dog dies he is buried next to her in a $1.4million mausoleum in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York.

Men aren't immune to the affections of a pet, though. One generous dog owner in China made equally extravagant arrangements for his pet pooch's funeral. A retired professor, Lin spent around £7,200 on a two-day funeral for the stray dog he had met only three months before. Lin hired a luxury Cadillac to take the dog to its final resting place, honouring the loyalty and companionship he had provided the lonely old man.

Incidentally, it's not just pet owners that want to give their companions a special goodbye. When a Tennessee man passed away, his best friend, a dog called Sam, ran away. Disappearing from the yard he was used to sharing with Teddy and his wife, he wasn't seen for two-and-a-half-days. This was until Teddy's friends and family arrived at a funeral home six miles away to find Sam waiting there, looking very pleased to see them.

Such are the times, it seems many are not content with giving their furry friends a send-off in their back garden and burying them under the privet hedge. Cremation, burial and funeral casket services, often conducted by a minister, are now seen as appropriate ways of saying farewell to a four-legged best friend.

To honour the memory of their deceased pets, some owners also buy them a plot at a pet cemetery, commissioning memorial stones and urns, which can be decorated with likenesses of the animal. Some are even opting to have their pet's ashes turned into a gemstone pendant, or commissioning a sculpture of their pet for its memorial.

Others even seek to preserve the image of their beloved animal in a more literal way. Taxidermy might be an option if you know you're not going to be able to live without your precious creature when the sad day comes, although with prices starting from around £2,500, it's not cheap. But then, neither is botox! And the Cryonic Institute in America offers its members the opportunity to preserve their pet in liquid nitrogen, in the hope that they will be able to bring them back to life in the future. But again, with prices starting at around $6,000 for a cat, some may just have to hope to see their pet again in the big pet playground in the sky.

Pet funerals can be a pricey business, so make sure you're prepared for the future by getting a pet insurance quote from Sainsbury's - awarded 'Best Online Pet Insurance Provider 2008' and 'Best Overall Online Provider 2007' by Your Money magazine.

* Refer to the Sainsbury's website for full details.