What To Do When Someone Dies
If you are reading this in the first hours, start here. You do not need to understand everything tonight. You need to do the next thing, and then the thing after that.
First, where they died changes your first call
If they died in a hospital or a care facility, the staff handle the official pronouncement. Your first call is to family, and then to a funeral home when you are ready. There is no rush on the second call.
If they died in a hospice facility or at home under hospice care, call the hospice nurse. Do not call 911 unless the hospice team tells you to. They will walk you through it and they have done this many times.
If they died at home without hospice, call 911. Do not move the body. Police may respond as well — that is standard procedure for any unattended death at home. It is not an accusation and it does not mean anyone suspects anything.
What to do right now, in this order
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Get someone with you. A family member, a friend, a neighbor. Do not sit alone with this.
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Get the official pronouncement of death. Everything that follows depends on this one step.
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Contact a funeral home. You do not need to have decided anything. You only need to make the call.
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Secure the phone, the password manager, and the accounts before anything locks you out.
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Arrange care for pets and for anyone who depended on them.
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Locate and secure the important documents while you still know where they are.
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Notify immediate family before word spreads on social media.
The four things not to do yet
These are the mistakes that cost families the most, and almost every one of them is made in the first forty-eight hours with the best of intentions.
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Do not call the bank yet. The account will freeze. Automatic payments will fail. The mortgage can go unpaid while you are at the funeral.
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Do not notify the utility companies yet. They will shut off service, sometimes to a house someone is still living in.
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Do not drive their vehicle. Auto coverage may be void the moment of death. Lock it and leave it.
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Do not give anything away. Not the watch, not the truck, not the furniture — not until the estate is properly handled. Well-meant generosity in week one becomes legal liability and family conflict in month six.
Documents to find tonight if you can
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Will, trust documents, and any prepaid funeral arrangements
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Life insurance policies — personal and through any employer
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Social Security card and birth certificate
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Marriage certificate and military discharge papers (DD-214) if applicable
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Recent bank statements, Medicare or Medicaid cards
Two calls almost nobody knows to make
Social Security: 1-800-772-1213. Any payment received for the month of death has to be returned — keeping it is a federal crime, and families do this by accident all the time. The funeral home reports the death, but it does not apply for survivor benefits on your behalf. That part is yours to do. There is also a one-time lump-sum death payment that most families never claim, and there is a window on it..
The credit bureaus, within twenty-four to forty-eight hours: Equifax 1-800-685-1111, Experian 1-888-397-3742, TransUnion 1-800-916-8800. The identity of a person who has just died is a target, and obituaries are where thieves shop. Do not publish a full date of birth, a mother's maiden name, a home address, or a Social Security number anywhere public.
What is coming, so nothing blindsides you
Days one through three are arrangements, notifications, and gathering paperwork. Days three through seven bring the service, the Social Security and insurance calls, and the death certificate process. Weeks two through four are when the estate process begins and the financial institutions want documentation. Months two through twelve are inventory, creditors, taxes, and eventually distribution. None of it has to happen at once. Knowing the shape of it is what lets you pace yourself instead of being ambushed by it.
Everything above is the beginning of a much longer list. The First Hour: What No One Tells You When Someone Dies was written by a father who had to learn all of it the hard way, in the worst week of his life. It is organized so you can open it to the chapter that matches your situation and skip everything else.
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