Someone you love has died, and within hours a phone call asks for a policy number. Grief and paperwork arrive together, and nobody hands you an order to do it in. This page is that order: what to do when someone dies, as a checklist, from the first hours through the first months, with the documents each step will ask for.
One thing before the list. Almost none of this is urgent. Beyond caring for the body and telling close family, most of it can wait days or weeks. Nothing falls apart because you took time to breathe.
The short version
If you only read one section, make it this one:
- Get a legal pronouncement of death (the hospital or hospice handles it; at home, call 911 or the hospice nurse).
- Choose a funeral home and tell them about any pre-arrangements.
- Tell close family and the employer.
- Find the will, then secure the home, pets, car, and mail.
- Order five to ten certified death certificates through the funeral home.
- Notify Social Security, pensions, the VA, insurers, banks, and the credit bureaus over the following two weeks.
- Start the estate: probate or its small-estate alternative, the final tax return, retirement accounts, property, vehicles, subscriptions.
Everything below is the same list with the details filled in.
The first days: what to do when someone dies
Pronouncement of death. A death has to be legally declared before anything else can happen. In a hospital or hospice, staff do this. At home, an expected death under hospice care usually means calling the hospice nurse; an unexpected death means calling 911. The pronouncement is what later becomes the death certificate.
The funeral home. Choose one and ask them to transport the body. If the person pre-paid or pre-planned a funeral, the contract is usually in their files with the other important papers — it's worth a ten-minute look before you agree to anything, because it may already be paid for. Tell the funeral director if the person was a veteran; VA burial and memorial benefits often apply, and the funeral home will need the discharge papers (DD-214) to request them.
Tell people. Close family and friends first, then the employer — who will also be a source of paperwork later (final paycheck, group life insurance, retirement plan, unused leave). If the person was caring for someone else, a dependent or a parent, arrange for that care today.
Find the will and any pre-arrangements. Common places: a home filing cabinet or safe, a safe deposit box, the attorney who drafted it, or a trusted adult child's house. Some states allow wills to be filed with the local probate court for safekeeping. While you're looking, note anything that names a funeral preference, a burial plot, or an organ-donation wish; those decisions come early.
Secure the practical things. Lock the home and, if it will sit empty, tell a neighbor. Arrange for pets. Move the car somewhere safe. Collect the mail and keep every envelope — bills and statements addressed to the person are how you will discover accounts nobody knew about. Don't throw anything away unopened for a while. Consider asking the post office to hold or forward mail.
The first two weeks: death certificates and who to notify
Death certificates: how many you need. This is the key that opens everything else. Banks, life insurers, pension administrators, the Social Security Administration, the DMV, and the county recorder nearly all want to see one before they will change anything, and most insist on a certified copy with a raised seal, not a photocopy. In the US, certified copies come from the state or county vital records office; the funeral home can usually order them when arrangements are made, and you can order more later through the vital records office. Most families end up needing five to ten. Ordering them together at the start is cheaper and far less wearying than discovering three weeks in that you need two more.
Social Security. In the US, the funeral home will usually report the death to the Social Security Administration if you give them the Social Security number — confirm that they did. Benefits paid for the month of death or later generally must be returned, and a surviving spouse or dependent children may be eligible for survivor benefits of their own. The details are on ssa.gov.
Pensions and the VA. Call any pension plan administrator; some pay a survivor benefit, some stop entirely, and either way they need to know. If the person was a veteran, the VA has burial, memorial, and survivor programs, and the DD-214 can be requested from the National Archives if you can't find the original.
Employer benefits. Ask HR about the final paycheck, unused vacation, group life insurance, the retirement plan, and whether health coverage for a spouse or children continues and for how long.
Life insurance claims. Each policy needs its own claim, filed by the named beneficiary with a certified death certificate. Look for policies in the files, in bank statements (premium payments show the insurer's name), and through the employer. Old policies from decades ago still pay if they were kept in force.
Bank accounts and credit cards. Notify each bank. Joint accounts usually stay open for the survivor; accounts in the person's name alone are frozen until the executor or a named beneficiary can claim them. Cancel credit cards held in the person's name alone and ask for a final statement. Keep paying the mortgage, utilities, and insurance on the home in the meantime; the estate can reimburse later.
Credit bureaus. Send a copy of the death certificate to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and ask for a "deceased — do not issue credit" notice on the file. The FTC's IdentityTheft.gov explains the steps; fraud using a deceased person's identity is common enough that this is worth doing early rather than late.
Digital accounts. Email, phone, and cloud storage accounts are where the next year's statements and notices will land, so keep them alive for now if you can. Locate the phone passcode and any password list before the phone's number is cancelled — many accounts send verification codes to it. Apple and Google both have legacy-contact processes for when you're ready to close things down.
The first months: probate, taxes, and the estate
Probate basics. In the US, generally, the will is filed with the probate court in the county where the person lived, and the court confirms the executor (or appoints an administrator if there is no will). That appointment — often called "letters testamentary" — is the paper banks and brokerages want before releasing accounts held in the person's name alone. Many states offer a simpler small-estate process below a dollar threshold, and assets with a named beneficiary or a joint owner skip probate altogether. USA.gov's checklist is a good starting point; for anything that feels legally uncertain, a short conversation with an estate attorney is worth far more than guessing.
The final tax return. Someone — usually the executor or the surviving spouse — files the person's last individual income tax return for the year of death, and possibly an estate income tax return if the estate earns income while it's open. The IRS explains who files and how. Gather the last few years of returns now; they list the bank accounts, brokerages, and pensions that paid interest or income, which makes them one of the best maps of what the person owned. If the death falls near tax season, the regular deadline still generally applies.
Retirement accounts. IRAs and 401(k)s pass by beneficiary designation, not by the will. Contact each plan with a death certificate; the beneficiary's options and deadlines depend on their relationship to the person, and the rules change, so check the plan's guidance and the IRS.
Property titles. A home held jointly with right of survivorship typically transfers to the survivor with a recorded death certificate; a home in the person's name alone goes through the estate. Keep homeowners insurance active and tell the insurer the house may be vacant — many policies have a vacancy clause.
Vehicles. The DMV transfers or retitles a vehicle with a death certificate and the letters from the court, or a small-estate affidavit where that applies. Keep the auto insurance going until the title changes.
Subscriptions and everything recurring. Streaming, gym, phone, internet, magazines, charities, and the dozen small things charged to a card every month. Each incoming statement in the first two months reveals a few more. Cancel what can be cancelled; transfer what a survivor still uses.
Documents needed when someone dies: who asks for what
You won't need all of this on day one. It's the working set for the months ahead, and a note on whether the original matters.
| Document | Who will ask for it | Where it usually is | Original or copy? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certified death certificates | Banks, insurers, Social Security, DMV, pensions, county recorder | Ordered through the funeral home or vital records office | Certified copies — order 5–10 |
| Will and any trust documents | Probate court, executor, estate attorney | Filing cabinet, safe, safe deposit box, attorney's office | Original signed will |
| Social Security number | Funeral home, Social Security, insurers, IRS | Social Security card, tax returns, Medicare card | Number only |
| Birth certificate | Social Security, pensions, VA (for survivor benefits) | With other vital records; county of birth issues copies | Certified copy |
| Marriage certificate | Social Security, pensions, insurers (spousal benefits) | With other vital records; county that issued it has copies | Certified copy |
| Divorce decree, if any | Pensions, Social Security (prior-spouse benefits) | Court that granted it | Certified copy |
| Military discharge papers (DD-214) | Funeral home, VA, national cemeteries | Personal files; the National Archives on request | Copy is usually fine |
| Life insurance policies | The insurer, for each claim | Files, employer HR, premium charges on statements | Copy; the insurer has the original |
| Health, homeowners, and auto policies | Insurers, to cancel or transfer | Files, email, insurer's app | Copy |
| Bank and credit card statements | Executor, to find and settle accounts | Mail, online banking, email | Copy |
| Investment and brokerage statements | Executor, probate court inventory | Mail, online accounts | Copy |
| Retirement plan and IRA statements | Plan administrator, beneficiaries | Employer HR, plan website, mail | Copy |
| Pension or annuity paperwork | Plan administrator | Files, employer HR | Copy |
| Deeds and mortgage documents | County recorder, title company, probate court | Safe, closing folder, county records | Original deed if you have it; recorded copies exist |
| Vehicle titles and registrations | DMV, buyer or new owner | Files, glove box (registration) | Original title |
| Recent tax returns (last 3–7 years) | Executor, whoever files the final return, IRS | Files, tax preparer, IRS transcripts on request | Copy |
| Safe deposit box key and contract | The bank | Key ring, desk drawer | Original key |
| Passwords, phone passcode, digital access | Executor, family | Password manager, notebook, phone | Whatever exists |
| Funeral pre-arrangement or plot deed | Funeral home, cemetery | With the will and insurance papers | Original if there is one |
| Bills, loans, and subscription notices | Executor, to settle or cancel | Incoming mail and email | Copy |
Paper still matters for a short list: certified death certificates, the original signed will (courts generally want the original), deeds and vehicle titles, and anything with a raised seal or wet signature. Keep those together in one physical place — a folder or a fireproof box — and let copies handle everything else, including knowing where that one place is.
Keeping it all findable as a family
The hard part isn't any single document. It's that they're scattered — a filing cabinet, a desk drawer, a safe deposit box, an email inbox, a shoebox — and that every search happens while you're exhausted, often by several people in several cities.
A method that keeps it humane:
- One box. Everything document-shaped goes in it. Don't sort, don't judge, don't decide. Finding and filing are separate jobs, and doing both at once is what drowns people.
- Scan as it arrives. A quick scan of each document and each envelope of mail means that when the insurer asks for a policy number on the phone, you can answer without excavating the box again. This is the quiet job an app like Paperlock is built for: save the scan and it reads the document itself — what it is, who it's from, the dates and amounts — and files it behind Face ID, so a week later you can ask "which life insurance policies did Dad have?" and get the answer with the documents attached, or hear that it isn't there yet. Even a plain photo album labeled "Estate" beats re-searching the house.
- Decide who holds what. One person keeps the paper originals and says where. One person owns the phone calls and keeps a running list: who was notified, on what date, what they asked for, and a reference number. Reading old statements to list accounts is a task a sibling three states away can do from scans.
- Keep the list after it's over. Estate paperwork, the final return, and account-closure letters are worth keeping for years — here's how long to keep which documents — and the originals deserve a proper backup rather than a single folder in a single house.
The kindest paperwork is done in advance
If you've read this far and thought about your own family, that instinct is right. The single hardest part of every step above is finding things, and that's the part you can remove for the people you love — this month, while it's easy.
Put your will, insurance policies, deeds, account list, and the phone passcode where one trusted person can find them, and tell them where. A digital emergency binder is the step-by-step version of exactly this: copies of what matters, in one place, locked, findable by asking rather than hunting. It's a few quiet hours now, traded for weeks of searching later by someone who is grieving you.