What to Do When a Parent Dies: The First 72 Hours

By Kay Richardson, Certified Estate Executor Manager
Founder, Next of Kin Plan

Last updated: August 3, 2026

In the first 72 hours you only have to do this list of things first. Everything else can wait, and most of it should. This page is the order to do them in.

If you are reading this today, I am sorry. Take what is useful and leave the rest.

The first few hours

1. Get the death formally pronounced. In a hospital or hospice, staff handle this. At home with hospice, call the hospice number, not 911. At home without hospice, call 911.

2. Call the people who need to hear it from you. Not everyone. Three or four. Ask one of them to tell the next group. You do not have to make every call yourself, and you will not remember most of them anyway.

3. Contact a funeral home. They take over from here, and they do more than most families expect. They will transport, help with the paperwork, and file for the death certificates. If your parent prepaid or preplanned anywhere, that is the place to call.

4. Look after anyone who depends on them. Pets, a surviving spouse, anyone in the house who cannot manage alone tonight. This is the thing families forget in the first six hours.

The first day

5. Order death certificates. Ask for more than you think. Ten to twelve certified copies. The funeral home orders them for you. Nearly every institution wants an original, not a photocopy, and reordering later means another wait when you are already tired of waiting.

6. Secure the home. Lock it. Bring in the mail. If the house is now empty, tell a trusted neighbour it is empty. Obituaries tell strangers when the family will be at a funeral.

7. Find the will, if there is one. Check a home safe, a filing cabinet, a desk drawer, a safe deposit box. If your parent had an attorney, call that office and ask. Attorneys often keep the original.

The second and third day

8. Make the arrangements. Do not let anyone rush you into decisions that cost money you have not thought about. Bring a second person to the funeral home. Two people hear a price differently than one.

9. Sort out what keeps running and what stops.

This is the part that catches families, so be deliberate about it.

Keep running: the mortgage, homeowners insurance, utilities on an occupied house, car insurance on a car anyone is still driving. Cancelling these creates problems that are expensive to undo.
Stop: streaming services, gym memberships, subscription boxes, anything recurring that serves nobody now.
Leave alone until you have advice: anything you are unsure about. There is no penalty for waiting a week. There is a real penalty for cancelling homeowners insurance on a house that then floods.

10. Notify Social Security. The funeral home usually reports the death, but confirm it rather than assume. Payments received after death generally have to be returned, and it is easier to stop them than to give them back. Call 1-800-772-1213.

What can wait, and should

Almost everything. In particular:

Probate. Weeks, not days. Nothing is lost by waiting.
Closing accounts and transferring titles.
Sorting through the house. Do not let anyone push you into clearing rooms this week.
Big decisions about the property.
Arguments with siblings about any of the above.

The first 72 hours are for the body, the paperwork that starts everything else, and the people in the house. That is genuinely all.

If you cannot find anything

Most families reach a moment in the first week where they realise nobody knows which bank, which insurance company, or whether a policy exists at all. Here is where to look.

The mail, for two months. Statements, renewal notices, and premium bills will reveal most active accounts. Do not stop the mail early.
Last year's tax return. Interest and dividend income points to accounts nobody mentioned.
The phone. Recent calls, banking apps, and the email inbox tell you who they were dealing with.
Unclaimed property. Search accounts nobody knows about at MissingMoney.com, free, for every state your parent lived in. State treasurers hold an estimated $70 billion, and about 1 in 7 Americans has some.

An executor spends roughly 570 hours settling an average estate, across about 16 months, according to EstateExec. A large share of those hours is not legal work. It is looking for things.

A note for later, when you are ready

Not today. Maybe not this month.

At some point in the next year, most people who go through this have the same thought: I do not want my children doing this. The reason it took so long was not the law. It was that all of it lived in one person's head, and that person was the one who was gone.

That problem has a name. It is called estate readiness, and it is what Next of Kin Plan is built for: getting what exists, where to find it, and what to do first out of one head and into a place the family can reach.

When you are ready, the free Estate Readiness Assessment shows you where your own gaps are. It takes a few minutes. Most families score 29 out of 57.

Common questions

What is the first thing to do when a parent dies?

Get the death formally pronounced. In a hospital or hospice, staff handle it. At home with hospice, call the hospice number rather than 911. At home without hospice, call 911. Everything else follows from that.

How many death certificates do I need?

Order ten to twelve certified copies. Most institutions require an original rather than a photocopy, and reordering later means another wait. The funeral home orders them for you.

Should I cancel my parent's bank account right away?

No. Do not rush account changes in the first week. Automatic payments for a mortgage, insurance, or utilities may still need to clear, and closing an account early can create problems that take months to undo. Stop the discretionary subscriptions and leave the rest until you have advice.

What if I cannot find the will?

Check a home safe, filing cabinets, and desk drawers first. Then call any attorney your parent worked with, because attorneys often keep the original. If no will exists, the estate is handled under your state's intestacy rules, and an attorney can walk you through what that means where you live.

Do I have to start probate immediately?

No. Probate takes weeks or months to begin and nothing is lost by waiting through the first week. This page is not legal advice, and requirements vary by state, so talk to an attorney about your situation before making decisions about the estate.

How do I find accounts my parent never told me about?

Watch the mail for two months, check last year's tax return for interest and dividend income, and search your state's unclaimed property database free at MissingMoney.com. You can also wait for the yearly privacy rules to be emailed as well. Search every state your parent lived in, not just the most recent one.