The After-Death Checklist No One Prepares You For

Build a master list of every institution attached to them: banks, credit cards, brokerage and retirement accounts, safe deposit boxes, real estate, vehicles, recurring bills like the mortgage, utilities, and loans, plus any businesses or recurring deliveries. Anything that needs to know they're gone.

Write one reusable notification template. You'll send a version of it to all of the above, so draft it once and change the names.

Notify each institution that you're the trustee or executor. That's what tells the bank you have the authority to step in. Then make an appointment with their estate attorney once the death certificate is in hand to walk through how you'll distribute everything.

If the estate goes through probate, the court issues you letters testamentary (or letters of administration when there's no will). That's the document banks and brokerages actually ask for as proof you're allowed to act for the estate, so request several certified copies.

Check whether they had a safe deposit box and get into it early. Some banks seal the box the moment they learn of a death, and you want the will, deeds, and policies out before that happens.

If you're the executor and there's an estate to settle, open a dedicated estate bank account and get a free EIN (tax ID) from the IRS so you can collect incoming money and pay the estate's bills from one clean place, never out of your own account.

Remember that beneficiary designations win. Whoever is named on a life insurance policy, 401(k), or IRA receives it directly, no matter what the will says, so check those designations before you assume the will controls everything.

Look into a small estate affidavit (some states call it an affidavit for collection of personal property). If the estate falls under your state's dollar threshold, it lets you declare to the court that you're the rightful heir and collect the assets without full probate. Keep a template, since you'll send it to several places.

If the estate is large or likely to be contested, you're probably headed for probate. The bigger the estate, the more likely that is. Small, simple estates often skip it entirely.

Even if you skip probate, many states still require you to file the original will with the probate court within a set window after the death, so don't sit on it.

As you work through the banks, close any accounts in their name alone, retitle joint accounts into yours, and pull current statements for the estate file.

Notify the three credit bureaus and ask them to flag the file as deceased. This is one of the most overlooked steps, and it's how you stop identity theft before it starts. While you're at it, pull their credit report. It's the fastest way to surface accounts and debts you didn't know existed.

Notify Social Security. The funeral home often reports the death, but confirm it happened, and ask about any survivor benefits you may qualify for. One thing that trips people up: benefits aren't paid for the month of death, so any payment that lands for that month or later has to go back, even a direct deposit. If you were their spouse, ask about the one-time $255 death payment too.

If they served, look into benefits for the survivors of a veteran, which can include a burial allowance and survivor compensation.

If they were on Medicaid, notify the program and ask about estate recovery, because the state can file a claim against the estate. Medicare usually ends on its own once Social Security is notified, but confirm any Part D drug plan is closed.

Contact their employer about the final paycheck, unused PTO, any commissions or stock options, retirement and pension survivor benefits, and life insurance through work. If you were their dependent, ask about continuing health coverage under COBRA, and note any deadline to elect it.

Contact any life insurance policies and send a certified copy of the death certificate to start the claim.

Collect their health insurance paperwork and file claims for anything you paid out of pocket, like hospice.

Notify the DMV to cancel their driver's license, which is another identity-theft safeguard. For the same reason, cancel their passport and remove them from the voter rolls.

Depending on their situation, file a final income tax return and handle any state filings that apply.

If you're set up as their Apple Legacy Contact, use Apple's Digital Legacy process to request access to their account. If you were never named as a Legacy Contact, there's still a path, though it usually takes a court order naming you before Apple will grant access.

Try logging into their computer and phone and pull their saved passwords from Google Password Manager or LastPass if you have the device password. If you're locked out, your options are limited by design, and this walkthrough covers what you can and can't do.

Memorialize their Facebook, and close or transfer online payment accounts like PayPal and Venmo, moving any balance to the beneficiary or the estate.

Contact the airlines and hotel programs to transfer unused miles and rewards to the beneficiary, then close those accounts.

For their Google account (email, photos, Drive), submit a request through Google's process for a deceased user if you need the data or want it closed.

Hunt down any cryptocurrency or digital wallets. Without the keys or the recovery phrase, that money is gone for good, so find where they kept access.

For stocks and brokerage accounts, send the death certificate. If there's a transfer-on-death beneficiary named, that person claims it directly. If not, it moves through the estate or trust, following whatever the plan spells out.

If they had car payments, notify the lender and decide whether you'll keep paying (so it passes to the heir) or hand it back. Either way, transfer the vehicle titles at the DMV so ownership is clean.

Distribute their personal things, the clothes, the house, all of it, according to the trust. If there's no trust, you go through it and do what feels right.

Sell the valuables nobody's claiming, and donate the rest.

If they struggled with hoarding or the home needs a heavy cleanout, it's completely okay to hire a company to help.

Track down anything they kept off-site, a storage unit, a gym locker, a second safe deposit box at another bank, and close out those contracts.

If they lived alone, secure the home and make sure everything's locked up.

Keep the homeowners and auto insurance active until the house and cars are sold or transferred. A vacant home with lapsed coverage is a claim waiting to be denied. If there's a mortgage, ask the servicer whether a mortgage protection policy pays it off at death before you keep making payments.

Arrange care for any pets or dependents right away, and if there are minor children, confirm the guardian named in the will.

Clean out the refrigerator. It sounds strange, but future-you will be grateful it isn't sitting there going rancid.

Safely dispose of any medications through a drug take-back, and cancel standing prescriptions so the refills stop.

If you're burying them, order the headstone.

Ask USPS to forward their mail to you so nothing important slips by.

Cancel or update their subscriptions and services.

Register them with the Deceased Do Not Contact list to cut down on the junk mail and solicitations that keep coming.

Send thank-you notes when you have the capacity, not a second before.

Find support for your own grief, whether that's a grief support group, a counselor, or the people who will just sit with you. You cannot pour all of this out of an empty cup.

A few months out, put a reminder on your calendar to search for unclaimed property in their name. Your state's controller or treasurer holds on to forgotten credits, deposits, and accounts, and some of it may be owed to the estate.

Let this be the nudge to get your own affairs in order. Make your will, write down your accounts and passwords, and record your wishes, so the person holding this list for you one day has an easier road than you did.