What to do when someone dies

Get the death legally pronounced. In a hospital, hospice or care facility, staff do this and the paperwork begins automatically. If someone dies at home under hospice care, call the hospice — not the emergency services. If the death is unexpected or unattended, call 911, and expect the medical examiner or coroner to be involved, which delays the death certificate.

Find out whether there are documented wishes. Look for a will, a prepaid funeral plan, an organ donation registration, veteran status, or written instructions kept with important papers. Organ and tissue donation in particular is time-critical and cannot be revisited later.

Choose a funeral home or cremation provider. This is where most of the money goes and most of the pressure is applied, and you are entitled to price information before committing. You are not obliged to use the first provider contacted by the hospital, and you may move the deceased to another provider.

The funeral home normally completes and files the death certificate with the state or county vital records office, gathering the personal details from you — full legal name, date and place of birth, Social Security number, parents' names, occupation and marital status. Getting these right at this stage saves an amendment process later.

Order certified copies at this point, and order more than feels reasonable. Ten to fifteen is a realistic figure for someone with a house, a pension, a couple of bank accounts and some insurance. They cost a small fee each and reordering later is slower than ordering now.

Secure the property. Take responsibility for pets immediately, remove or forward mail, and make the home look occupied — obituaries are read by burglars, and an empty house with a public funeral date is a known target. Do not distribute possessions to family members yet, however uncontroversial it seems, because those items may belong to the estate.

Notify immediate family, the employer, and anyone with caregiving or financial responsibilities. Ask the employer specifically about final pay, accrued leave, life insurance held through work, and any retirement plan — employer-held life cover is one of the most commonly forgotten assets.

A certified death certificate is issued by the state or county vital records office and carries a raised seal or comparable security feature. It is the document every institution treats as proof, and most of them will not act on a photocopy, a scan, or a funeral home's own notice.

The number you need is a function of how many separate institutions must be told and how many will retain the copy. Each bank, each insurer, each pension or retirement plan administrator, the motor vehicle agency for a titled vehicle, the county recorder for real property, the probate court, and often a brokerage or credit union will want one. Some accept a copy; many do not.

Cause of death appears on some versions and not others. Several states issue both a version showing cause and an abbreviated one that does not, and some institutions specifically require the version with cause of death — life insurers in particular. Ask the funeral home which versions your state offers and order a mix.

If the death is under investigation by a medical examiner or coroner, the certificate may initially be issued with the cause listed as pending. That version is usually enough to start most processes, and an amended certificate follows. Do not wait for the final version before beginning notifications.

Errors happen, and they matter. A misspelled name, wrong Social Security number or incorrect date of birth will cause rejections at exactly the institutions where you can least afford delay. Check the first certificate carefully as soon as it arrives and ask the funeral home to initiate a correction immediately if anything is wrong.

Reordering later is possible and is done through the same state or county vital records office, but with proof of your relationship and eligibility, because access to death records is restricted in most states. Keep at least one copy back unused for exactly this reason.

For a death that occurred outside the United States, the process runs through the nearest US embassy or consulate, which issues a Consular Report of Death Abroad. That report performs the same function as a domestic death certificate for US purposes, and obtaining it takes considerably longer.

Social Security first. The funeral home usually reports the death, but confirm it rather than assuming, because payments made after the month of death must be returned and reclaiming them from a closed account is an unpleasant process. A surviving spouse or dependent child may be eligible for a lump-sum death payment and for ongoing survivor benefits, which are applied for separately.

Employers and former employers, for final wages, unused leave, employer life insurance, and any workplace retirement plan. Plan administrators pay to the named beneficiary, so ask what beneficiary is recorded rather than what the will says.

Life insurers, including policies bought through a bank, a union, a professional association or a credit card. Policies people forget are a large share of unclaimed life insurance, so search paperwork, bank statements for premium debits, and email for policy documents.

Banks and credit unions. A joint account with rights of survivorship generally passes to the survivor directly; a sole account is frozen pending probate or a small-estate procedure. Do not keep using a debit card or online banking on a sole account after death — it is a criminal offence in some states and it complicates the estate accounting.

The three credit bureaus, to flag the file as deceased. This is one of the most effective anti-fraud steps available, because identity theft using recently deceased people's details is a recognised and industrial-scale problem. Send a certified copy and request the file be marked.

Medicare, Medicaid, any pension provider, the Department of Veterans Affairs if the person served, the motor vehicle agency for a titled vehicle, the county for property, insurers for home and auto policies, and the post office to forward mail. Cancel subscriptions, memberships and utilities last, once you know whether the property is being kept.

Keep a written log: who you notified, on what date, what reference they gave, and what they asked for. You will be asked the same questions repeatedly by different institutions over several months, and the log is the difference between an afternoon of calls and a week of them.

Do not close accounts or cancel insurance on a property before you know what the estate plans to do with it. Cancelling homeowners cover on an empty house that then floods is a common and expensive mistake.

Social Security survivor benefits are the largest and least understood. A one-time lump-sum death payment may be available to a surviving spouse or eligible child, and separately there are ongoing monthly survivor benefits for widows and widowers, dependent children, and in some cases dependent parents or a divorced spouse from a long marriage.

The rules on when a surviving spouse should claim are genuinely consequential. Survivor benefits can generally be claimed earlier than retirement benefits but at a reduced rate, and in some circumstances it makes sense to take one benefit first and switch to the other later. This is a decision worth modelling rather than guessing, because it is effectively irreversible.

Veterans' benefits are substantial and widely unclaimed. Depending on service history, a surviving family may be entitled to burial in a national cemetery, a government headstone or marker, a burial flag, military funeral honours, a burial allowance, and in some cases ongoing dependency compensation. Discharge paperwork is the key document, and it can be requested from the National Archives if lost.

Federal and state government employees, and members of some union or association plans, often had life insurance and survivor annuity arrangements that families do not know about. Contact the former employing agency directly.

If the death was work-related, workers' compensation death benefits may be payable through the state system, and these are separate from anything else. If it resulted from a crime, state crime victim compensation programmes can cover funeral costs and counselling.

Means-tested support is available in some states for funeral costs where the estate cannot cover them, usually through the county or a state social services agency. It is rarely advertised, is often capped at an amount well below a typical funeral, and generally must be applied for before the funeral is arranged rather than afterwards.

Finally, search for unclaimed property in every state the person lived in. Dormant bank accounts, uncashed cheques, insurance proceeds and forgotten deposits are turned over to state treasuries, and the search is free. This is one of the few tasks that regularly finds real money.

Probate is the state court process for proving a will, appointing a personal representative, paying valid debts and distributing what remains. It is administered by state courts, so procedure, terminology and timescales vary considerably, and the court's own self-help materials are the authority for your state.

A large share of a typical estate never goes through probate at all. Retirement accounts, life insurance and anything with a named beneficiary pass directly to that beneficiary. Property held jointly with rights of survivorship passes to the survivor. Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts pass to the named person. Assets in a living trust pass under the trust.

That has a practical consequence people find hard to believe: the beneficiary designation beats the will. If a retirement account names an ex-spouse and the will leaves everything to the current spouse, the account generally goes to the ex-spouse. This is a routine and irreversible outcome.

Most states offer a simplified procedure for small estates — a sworn affidavit rather than full probate — where the value falls below a threshold that state sets. If the estate is modest and there is no real property, ask the court clerk about the small-estate route before instructing anyone.

The personal representative or executor has real duties: locating assets, notifying creditors, keeping estate funds separate from their own, filing tax returns, and accounting to the court and beneficiaries. Mixing estate money with personal money is the error that causes most executor liability, and it is entirely avoidable by opening a dedicated estate account.

A final individual income tax return must be filed for the year of death, covering income up to the date of death, and the estate itself may need to file its own return if it generates income afterwards. Federal estate tax applies only above a threshold that is set annually and is high enough that the large majority of estates never owe it, but several states impose their own estate or inheritance taxes at much lower levels.

Where debts exceed assets, the estate is insolvent, and creditors are paid in the statutory priority order until the money runs out. Beneficiaries receive nothing, but they also do not inherit the shortfall. Understanding this early prevents a great deal of unnecessary anxiety and some genuinely bad decisions.

The funeral is the largest immediate cost and the one made under the worst possible conditions for careful buying — grief, time pressure, and a strong social taboo against appearing to economise on someone you loved. Providers are aware of all three.

Federal law gives you specific rights here. The Funeral Rule requires providers to give itemised price information, including over the telephone, before you commit. You are entitled to a written general price list, and you may choose individual goods and services rather than being required to buy a package.

You are not required to buy a casket from the funeral home, and the provider may not charge a handling fee for one bought elsewhere or refuse to use it. Caskets and urns bought from third-party retailers are often substantially cheaper for equivalent products, and this is one of the largest single savings available.

Embalming is not generally required by law. Providers may not tell you it is legally required when it is not, though a particular service arrangement — a public viewing, for instance, or a delay before burial — may make it a practical condition. Direct cremation and immediate burial avoid it entirely.

Ask for the price list from three providers before deciding. Prices for identical services vary widely within the same city, and the Funeral Rule exists precisely so that comparison is possible. Telephone quotes are enough for a shortlist.

Be cautious with prepaid funeral plans, whether you are buying one or discovering one. Ask what happens if the provider closes, is sold, or if the person moves state, whether the plan is transferable, whether it is genuinely price-guaranteed, and where the money is held. Some are well-protected; some are not.

If a provider will not give itemised prices, pressures you into a package, misrepresents legal requirements, or refuses a casket bought elsewhere, that is a matter for the Federal Trade Commission and your state attorney general. Complaints are free to make and the rule is enforced.

Finally, resist making permanent decisions in the first two days that could reasonably wait. Burial versus cremation cannot be undone, but the memorial, the headstone, the obituary and the gathering can all happen weeks later, at a fraction of the cost and with considerably more thought.