The first days after a death

If the death happened in a hospital or a care facility, most of this is handled for you and the staff will say so.

1. Immediately

   Get the death legally pronounced

   Nothing else can start until this happens. In a hospital or hospice it is done by staff. At home with hospice care, call the hospice number, not 911. At home without hospice, call 911.
   • If the person was on hospice, calling 911 instead of hospice can trigger resuscitation attempts the patient had declined, and a police attendance nobody wanted.
   • An expected death at home is not an emergency, but an unattended one may involve the medical examiner, which is normal and not an accusation.
2. Tell the few people who need to hear it from you

   Immediate family, and anyone who was close enough that hearing it secondhand would be a wound. Everyone else can wait, and the list can be delegated to one person who is not you.

   Do after: pronouncement

3. Secure the home, the pets and the vehicle

   An empty house is a target, and deaths are published. Lock up, arrange care for pets that afternoon, and take the car keys and any obvious valuables somewhere safe.

   Do after: pronouncement

   This is the practical step nobody thinks of, and the one most likely to cause a second loss.

1. Hard to undo

   Look for written wishes before deciding anything about the body

   A prepaid funeral plan, a written directive, a note in a file, an organ-donor registration. Decisions about burial and cremation are hard to undo, and the wishes are often written down somewhere nobody has looked.
   • Check with the funeral home the family has used before — prepaid plans are often held there rather than at home.
   • Check whether the person was a registered organ donor, which is usually recorded with the state's donor registry or on a driver's license.

   Do after: pronouncement

2. Hard to undo

   Choose a funeral home, and get an itemized price list

   You are entitled to an itemized price list before agreeing to anything, and you may decline items you do not want. This is a purchase made under the worst possible conditions, and comparing two providers by phone is normal.

   Do after: find wishes

   This is the largest single expense most families face in the first week, and prices for identical services vary widely.

3. Order certified copies of the death certificate

   The funeral home usually orders these for you as part of the arrangements. Some institutions require a certified copy and do not return it; others accept a photocopy, or hand the certified copy back. Ask what each one requires before ordering extras.
   • More can be ordered later. It takes longer than adding them to the first order, which is the reason to ask the institutions early rather than to order blind.

   Do after: choose funeral home

1. Before the next benefit payment

   Confirm Social Security has been told

   The funeral director usually reports the death. Confirm it, because if nobody does, benefits keep arriving and every one of them has to be repaid.

   Do after: choose funeral home

2. Look for the will and the key documents

   Not to act on yet — just to know whether one exists and where. A safe-deposit box may be sealed, and an attorney who drafted a will usually keeps a copy.

   Do after: pronouncement

3. Only if it applies

   Tell the employer, if they were working

   Ask specifically about a final paycheck, unused leave, employer-provided life insurance and a retirement plan. Employer group life insurance is one of the most commonly missed benefits, because nobody in the family knows it existed.

   Do after: immediate people

4. Deal with the mail

   Mail piling up on a doorstep advertises an empty house, and mail is also how you discover accounts, insurers and subscriptions nobody knew about. Forward it to whoever is handling the estate.

   Do after: secure home

5. Notify the credit bureaus

   Deceased people are a common identity-theft target, precisely because nobody is watching the accounts. Notifying one bureau places a deceased indicator on the file, and the bureaus notify each other — so you do not have to write to all three.
   • Each bureau asks for a copy of the death certificate plus your own identification and proof that you are the spouse or an authorized representative.
   • Report a death to Experian (opens in a new tab)
   • Report a death to Equifax (opens in a new tab)
   • Report a death to TransUnion (opens in a new tab)

   Do after: order certificates

6. On the Social Security call, ask two more things

   Social Security notifies Medicare — there is no separate Medicare call to make. And the same call is where to ask about survivors benefits, which otherwise gets left for weeks because it feels like a different subject. USAGov also makes clear that the funeral director *should* report the death but may not have, so confirming it is a real step rather than a redundant one.^{Source: USAGov — report a death: Social Security and Medicare (opens in a new tab)•}

   Do after: report ssa

   Families commonly make three calls where one would do, or none at all on the assumption that the funeral home covered everything.

7. Before the next payment cycle

   Stop any state benefit that was being paid

   Reporting a death to Social Security stops Social Security. It does not stop what a state administers — SNAP, TANF, rental assistance or Medicaid all run through a state social services office that never hears from SSA. Each needs its own call.^{Source: USAGov — report a death: state social services benefits (opens in a new tab)•}

   Do after: report ssa

   A payment that keeps arriving will be reclaimed, and knowingly letting it run is the exposure the identity-theft page describes.

8. Cancel the driving license, and ask about the vehicle while you are there

   The state motor vehicles office does both jobs: canceling the license or state ID, and transferring the title of a vehicle. Families treat these as unrelated errands months apart; they are one contact.^{Source: USAGov — report a death: state motor vehicles office (opens in a new tab)•}

   An uncancelled license is a photo identity document in a drawer with nothing tracking it — the same exposure an uncancelled passport creates.

9. Only if it applies

   If they were a veteran, the VA has two lists, not one

   One list is what a survivor may claim: burial benefits, death and survivor benefits, veterans life insurance. The other is what a survivor must cancel: compensation, pension, education, health and military retiree benefits. Both sit behind one agency and one phone call, which is why the second list gets missed.^{Source: USAGov — report a death: Department of Veterans Affairs, claims and cancellations (opens in a new tab)•}