What to do when a loved one dies: a 30-day checklist

When someone you love dies, the world stops and a hundred deadlines start at the same time. You are expected to grieve and to make decisions about funerals, paperwork, and money — often within hours of the worst news of your life. No one is ever ready, and there is no version of this that is easy.

What you can do is have a list. The list below is the complete sequence of what to do in the first 24 hours, the first week, and the first 30 days. Print it. Forward it to a family member. Save it in your vault. Use it when you need it.

The first 24 hours

1. If the death was unexpected or happened at home, call 911. If it happened in a hospital or hospice, the staff will guide you through the next immediate steps.
2. Obtain a legal pronouncement of death. A doctor, hospice nurse, or coroner must declare it formally — this is required for everything that follows.
3. Notify immediate family and the closest friends. Take notes on who you spoke to so you do not duplicate or forget calls.
4. Contact a funeral home. They will transport the body, help with the death certificate, and coordinate the service.
5. Check for organ donation or anatomical gift wishes. This decision is time-sensitive.
6. Secure the home — water plants, take in mail, lock doors, set lights on a timer if it will be unoccupied.
7. Care for any pets in the household.

Days 2 to 7

This is the week where the funeral happens and the paperwork begins. Triage hard. You cannot do everything, and most of the financial deadlines are weeks or months out — not days.

1. Order at least 10 to 15 certified copies of the death certificate from the funeral home. You will need an original for nearly every account, claim, and government agency.
2. Plan the funeral or memorial. The funeral home walks you through this.
3. Notify the employer. Ask specifically about life insurance, retirement plan death benefits, final paycheck, unused vacation pay, and continuation of health coverage for dependents.
4. Notify the deceased's life insurance carriers. The funeral home can sometimes help with this; you can also use EverKeep's vault if the family has one.
5. Locate the will and any trust documents. Identify the named executor.
6. Forward mail to a single person, usually the executor, so nothing goes missed.
7. Begin a single notebook (paper or digital) of every call you make, every claim you file, and every confirmation number you receive. You will thank yourself in month two.

Weeks 2 to 4

By the second week, the funeral is over and the broader administrative work begins. Pace yourself. Most of these calls take 30 to 60 minutes each and you do not have to make them all in one day.

Government and benefits

1. Notify the Social Security Administration (1-800-772-1213). The funeral home often does this, but confirm. Surviving spouses and minor children may be eligible for benefits.
2. Notify the Department of Veterans Affairs if the deceased was a veteran. Burial benefits and survivor benefits may apply.
3. Notify Medicare if applicable.
4. Notify any pension administrators.

Insurance and financial

1. File a claim with every life insurance carrier — individual policies, group policies through current and former employers, accidental death and dismemberment, mortgage life insurance, credit card life insurance.
2. If you cannot find every policy, search systematically. The NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator searches participating carriers nationally; state unclaimed property databases catch policies the carriers turned over.
3. Notify the deceased's bank, brokerage, and retirement plan administrators. Joint accounts typically transfer automatically; individual accounts go through the will.
4. Notify the credit card companies. They will close the account and waive any balance if the account is unsecured.
5. Notify the auto and homeowners insurers to update coverage.
6. Notify the mortgage company. If there is mortgage life insurance, the balance may be paid off.
7. Cancel or transfer subscriptions, memberships, and recurring charges.

Identity and records

1. Notify the three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) to add a 'deceased' notice. This prevents identity theft.
2. Cancel the driver's license at the DMV.
3. Cancel passport at the State Department.
4. Close email and social media accounts (most platforms have a 'memorialize' option).
5. Cancel voter registration with the county elections office.

Before day 30: file probate if required

If the deceased owned assets in their name alone — a home, a brokerage account, a vehicle — the estate likely has to go through probate. Probate is the court-supervised process of distributing the assets according to the will (or state law if there was no will). Hire an estate attorney early; they will save you far more than they cost in mistakes prevented.

Life insurance death benefits paid directly to a named beneficiary skip probate entirely — which is one of the reasons keeping your beneficiary designations current is so important.

The hardest part: finding what you do not know about

The single most common problem families run into in the first 30 days is not knowing what the deceased owned. Which carriers? Which policies? Which accounts? More than a billion dollars in life insurance benefits go unclaimed in the United States every year, almost entirely because the family never found the policy.

If you are reading this in advance for yourself, the kindest thing you can do for your family is to make sure none of this is a treasure hunt. Put every policy, every account, and every key document in one place — and grant access to one person who can find it without you. That is what EverKeep is built for.

Take care of yourself

Grief does not respect a 30-day checklist. Some weeks you will not be able to make the phone calls. That is normal, and most of these deadlines are flexible. Lean on family. Ask for help. If you can, give yourself permission to handle the urgent items now and the rest later. The list will still be here when you are ready.