What to do in the first 72 hours after a death.

The first three days are not the time to settle an estate. They are the time to prevent a small number of problems that are expensive to undo later, and to leave everything else alone. This is the same sequence AnPath's Crisis Mode generates inside the app, written out plainly.

If you are reading this at 2am with a phone in your hand: nothing below has to be done tonight. Read it in the morning.

Day one — secure, then notify

Secure the phone, wallet, keys, and mail

This sounds cold and it is the most protective thing you can do. The phone is often the only route to two-factor codes and account access. The wallet holds cards that need to be watched. Uncollected mail at an empty home is both a fraud risk and a signal that the home is unoccupied. Take custody of all four before anything else.

Locate the will, power of attorney, and any trust documents

These determine who has authority to act, and until someone has that authority, most institutions will decline to speak with you at all. Check the home filing cabinet, a home safe, the attorney who drafted them, and — carefully — any safe deposit box, because access rules for boxes after death vary by state and by bank. Note that a power of attorney ends at death; it does not give you authority afterward.

Notify the immediate family and the named executor

The executor named in the will needs to know immediately, even if they live far away and even if formal appointment is weeks off, because their responsibilities effectively begin now. Keep the notification list short on day one. The wider circle can wait.

Start watching the accounts

The days right after a death are the highest-risk window for financial fraud, particularly once an obituary is published. You do not need to close anything yet. You need to be looking at it.

Day two — funeral home, documents, and the payment machinery

Work with the funeral home on the death certificate

The funeral home ordinarily files the death record with the state or county vital records office and orders certified copies on your behalf. Order more than feels reasonable — many families use ten to fifteen. Nearly every bank, insurer, retirement plan, and title transfer will want a certified copy, and several will not return it. Ordering additional copies later is possible but slower and more expensive per copy.

Ask the funeral director whether they will report the death to the Social Security Administration. Most do. Confirm it rather than assume it — you can verify with SSA directly afterward.

Identify the critical autopayments

Mortgage, homeowner's insurance, auto insurance, and utilities. These are the four that cause real damage if they lapse. Find out which account they draft from and whether that account is joint or sole. Do not cancel the payments. The mistake families make in week one is stopping a mortgage draft before speaking to the servicer.

If they owned a home

Call the mortgage servicer, tell them what has happened, and ask what they need. Servicers have bereavement units. Keep paying unless they advise otherwise.

If they owned a business

Secure business accounts and notify partners or key employees the same day. Businesses carry obligations — payroll, vendor terms, filings — that do not wait for probate.

If they were a veteran

Contact the VA. Surviving family may be eligible for burial benefits and, separately, for survivor benefits. Some VA burial allowances carry filing deadlines that depend on whether the death was service-connected, so ask about the applicable window when you call.

Day three — gather, don't decide

By now you will be asked repeatedly for the same handful of items. Assemble them once, in one folder, and the next month gets meaningfully easier:

• Certified death certificates
• The will, and the trust if one exists
• The deceased's Social Security number
• A government-issued photo ID for you, the person acting
• Marriage certificate, and birth certificates for any minor children
• Recent statements for each known bank, retirement, and investment account
• Insurance policy numbers and carrier names
• Military discharge paperwork (DD-214), if applicable

What can safely wait

Nearly everything else. Specifically, these do not belong in the first 72 hours:

• Opening probate. It has a process and a court schedule; a few days changes nothing.
• Distributing personal belongings. Sentimental items given away early are the most common source of lasting family conflict.
• Selling the house or the car. Titles have to be sorted first, and rushed sales are regretted sales.
• Cancelling subscriptions and closing small accounts. Genuinely useful, genuinely not urgent.
• Filing life insurance claims. Do it soon, but do it with the death certificate in hand rather than half-prepared.

One organizing principle

In the first three days, protect what is exposed and gather what will be asked for. Decide nothing that cannot be undone. Almost every regret we hear about this period is a decision that was made faster than it needed to be.

This is the general version

Everything above applies to almost every death, and none of it is withheld. But your actual list may look different — shorter in some places, with extra steps in others — depending on your state and your specific situation. Whether there is a will changes who has authority in the first week. A veteran's family has benefit deadlines that don't exist otherwise. Joint accounts behave nothing like individual ones. A business owner's death adds payroll and continuity steps in the first 72 hours that most families never face.

An article cannot know those facts about you, so it has to describe the middle case. AnPath's Crisis Mode builds your exact list automatically once you answer a few questions about what you're dealing with, then tracks what's done as you and anyone helping you work through it.

General information, not legal advice. Probate, vital records, and safe deposit box access rules differ by state — confirm with the relevant office or a licensed attorney in your state.