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Funeral planning checklist

Everything that has to happen, in the order urgency actually demands rather than the order it occurs to you at four in the morning. Four items are genuinely urgent. The rest has days or weeks, and knowing which is which is most of the relief this list can offer.

Written by Raphael Hertz, licensed life insurance agentUpdated 1 September 2026Editorial standards

How to use this

Print it or keep it open on a phone, and give it to somebody who is not the closest mourner. The person who has just lost a spouse should not be the person chasing a pension administrator, and there is almost always a sibling, an adult child or a friend who badly wants a job and does not know what to ask for.

Work top down and resist the urge to jump ahead. Nearly every mistake families make in the first fortnight comes from doing a first month task on the first day, under pressure, without the information they will have by Thursday.

Within hours

Task	Notes
Get the death pronounced	Hospice line for a hospice patient, the attending physician for an expected home death, 911 if it was sudden. Nothing else can start until this is done
Mention organ or tissue donation	The only genuinely time critical item. Say it to whoever attends
Tell the two or three people who must not hear it from anybody else	Then hand the rest of the calling list to somebody else
Look for a prepaid contract, a cemetery deed or written wishes	Bedside drawer, file box, safe deposit key, the lawyer, the funeral home the family has used before
Arrange collection of the person	Ring more than one provider where the situation allows it. Price lists must be quoted on the phone
Secure the house, the medications, the cash and the pets	Take the mail in. An obviously empty house is a target

What to do when someone dies works through this hour by hour, including which first call is correct in each situation.

Within 48 hours

This is the window in which the money is decided, so it is worth an afternoon of care. Choose a funeral home properly, supply the death certificate information, and settle burial or cremation. Everything else can be added later.

Get itemised price lists from three funeral homes. They must give you one and must quote on the phone. This step saves more money than every other step on this page combined.
Decide burial or cremation. Check first whether the person left an instruction, and check who has legal authority to decide in your state.
Confirm who signs. For a cremation especially, several states require every adult child to authorise rather than one. This stalls more funerals than anything else.
Supply the death certificate details. Social Security number, place and date of birth, both parents including the mother maiden name, occupation, education, military service.
Order eight to twelve certified copies. Far cheaper now than later.
Set the date and the venue, then publish the notice even if some details are still to be confirmed.
Ask for military funeral honours if the person served, and produce the DD214.

Documents to find, and who asks for each

Gather these into one box or one folder as you find them. You will be asked for the same six or seven repeatedly over the next two months, and hunting for each one twice is the quiet tax on an unorganised estate.

Document	Who wants it	Where it usually is
Certified death certificates	Insurers, banks, brokerages, probate, the county recorder, motor vehicle agency, Veterans Affairs	Ordered through the funeral director, or from the state vital records office
Social Security number and card	The death certificate itself, Social Security, pension administrators	Wallet, file box, a tax return
Birth certificate	Veterans Affairs, some pensions, genealogy for the certificate itself	File box, safe deposit box, the state of birth
Marriage certificate or divorce decree	Social Security survivor claims, pensions, probate	File box, or the county where it was issued
DD Form 214 or discharge papers	Military funeral honours, VA burial allowance, headstone, burial flag, national cemetery	File box, safe deposit box, the county recorder, or the National Archives
Life insurance policies	Each carrier, one certified copy each	File box, employer benefits, a bank statement showing the premium
Prepaid funeral contract or preneed policy	The funeral home. Read it before you agree to anything	File box, or the funeral home that sold it
Cemetery deed or interment right	The cemetery, before you buy a second plot by mistake	File box, or the cemetery office
Will, trust and any letter of instruction	The executor, then the probate court	Lawyer, safe deposit box, home safe
Deeds and vehicle titles	County recorder, motor vehicle agency	File box, mortgage lender, lienholder
Recent bank, pension and brokerage statements	The executor, to find the accounts at all	Post, email, the last tax return
Last two tax returns	The executor and the estate accountant	Home files or the preparer
Health insurance and Medicare cards	To stop billing and to close claims	Wallet

The decisions, with what each one costs

The figures below are the national medians published in the funeral industry price survey. They are the level, not your quote, and the spread between two providers in one town is routinely thousands of dollars for identical work.

Decision	Cost anchor	What it turns on
Burial with a viewing and a service	$8,300	The funeral home median, with a metal casket already inside it and no cemetery cost at all
The same, once the cemetery has billed	About $15,395	Adds the plot, opening and closing, a vault and a headstone
Cremation with a viewing and a service	$6,280	Same ceremony, no cemetery obligation unless you inter the urn
Immediate burial, no viewing or ceremony	$5,138	Funeral home charge only. Cemetery costs still apply
Direct cremation	$2,202	The least expensive option in every state. A memorial afterwards costs whatever you choose
Embalming	Declinable	Not required by law in most circumstances. Only relevant if there is a public viewing
Casket	The largest declinable item	May be bought anywhere. The funeral home must accept it with no handling fee
Obituary in a paid publication	$200 to $600	Priced by the line. The funeral home web page costs nothing extra
Clergy or celebrant	$150 to $400	An honorarium, paid directly rather than through the funeral home
Reception or repast	$300 to $1,500	A church hall, a home or a restaurant private room, rather than the funeral home

The full breakdown of a funeral bill shows how these lines add up, and how to compare three funeral homes turns the comparison into an afternoon of work rather than a guess.

The first week

Hold the service. Collect the certified copies. Notify the employer formally and ask about final pay, accrued leave, group life cover and any pension death benefit, because employer group life is the policy families most often forget exists.

Open every life insurance claim you can identify, sending a certified copy to each carrier. Do not wait for probate. Life insurance with a named beneficiary passes outside the estate and does not need the court.

Ask the funeral director whether the death has been reported to Social Security, which is normally part of filing. That report stops the monthly payments. It does not claim anything, and the $255 lump sum death payment and survivor benefits both have to be applied for separately.

Notify one of the three credit bureaux, which will inform the other two, and ask for the file to be flagged as deceased. Keep a written log of every organisation notified, the date and the name of the person you spoke to.

The first month

Meet a probate lawyer if there is real property, a business, a contested will or an estate of any size, and skip it if the estate is a car and a bank account with a joint owner. Ask what your state offers by way of a small estate affidavit, because many estates never need to be opened at all.

Then work steadily through the accounts. Banks and credit unions, brokerages, the pension, any annuity, motor vehicle titles, the property deed, health insurance, home and car insurance, utilities, the phone, subscriptions, memberships and the post. Redirect the mail so nothing sits in a box on a porch.

File any Veterans Affairs claim if the person served, using the veterans benefits guide, and apply for the government headstone if burial was in a private cemetery. Neither is applied automatically.

The first year

A final individual tax return is due for the year of death, and an estate return may be needed as well. Keep receipts for funeral expenses, which some estates may deduct. Close the estate account only when every claim is settled.

Order the headstone once the ground has settled, which many cemeteries require and which commonly means several months. Cancel anything that renews annually and was missed the first time. And put a reminder in a calendar for the first anniversary, both for yourself and for whoever else in the family is going to find it hard.

If you are planning ahead for yourself

The short version is a single page in a place somebody can find. Burial or cremation. Any cemetery or plot already owned, with the deed. Whether you want a viewing. What you would like read or played. Who should be told, with numbers. Where the will is, where the policies are, and the login for the email account.

Keep it out of the safe deposit box, which is frequently sealed at death and cannot be opened in time to be useful. Give a copy to the person you expect to be doing this. Then, separately, decide how it is being paid for, because a written wish and no money is a burden dressed as a gift.

Deciding how it gets paid for

Money is the one line on this list nobody can improvise. A small policy written for funeral costs pays a named beneficiary within days, sits outside probate, and is sized for the bill rather than for an estate.

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Common questions

What has to be done immediately when someone dies?

Four things. Get the death pronounced by whoever has authority to do it, mention organ or tissue donation because that is the only genuinely time critical item, tell the two or three people who must not hear it from anybody else, and arrange for the person to be collected. Everything else on a funeral checklist has days or weeks.

What documents do you need when someone dies?

Certified death certificates above all, then the Social Security number, the birth certificate, a marriage certificate or divorce decree, the DD Form 214 if the person served, every life insurance policy, any prepaid funeral contract or cemetery deed, the will, deeds and vehicle titles, recent bank and pension statements, the last two tax returns and the health insurance cards.

How many certified death certificates should you order?

Eight to twelve for a typical estate. One for each life insurance policy, one for each bank or brokerage, one for the pension, one for each property or vehicle title, one for probate, one for any Veterans Affairs claim and two spares. Ordering them all at once is cheaper and much faster than going back later.

How much does a funeral cost?

The published national median for a funeral with a viewing and a burial is $8,300 in funeral home charges, which already includes a metal casket and excludes every cemetery cost. Once the plot, the opening and closing, a vault and a headstone are added, a typical burial comes to roughly $15,395. A cremation with a service runs a median of $6,280 and a direct cremation $2,202.

Who is responsible for arranging the funeral?

Each state sets an order of priority, which generally runs a person the deceased named in writing, then the surviving spouse, then adult children, then parents, then siblings. Where authority is shared between several adult children, some states require all of them to sign, particularly for a cremation. Establish this on the first day, because it is the most common cause of delay.

Do you have to hold the funeral within a certain time?

No, other than where a faith tradition calls for burial within a day or two. There is no legal deadline in most circumstances, and a family can hold a memorial weeks or months later once the practical part is complete. That is exactly how direct cremation and body donation families usually handle it, and it takes a great deal of pressure off.

What should you not do in the first week?

Do not clear the house, sell or give away possessions, or close accounts before you know whether there is a will and who is entitled to act. Do not sign a funeral contract without an itemised price list from more than one provider. And do not wait for probate before opening life insurance claims, because a policy with a named beneficiary passes outside the estate.

What can wait until the first month?

Probate, if it is needed at all. Banks, brokerages, the pension, property deeds, vehicle titles, insurance policies, utilities, subscriptions and memberships. Veterans Affairs claims and the application for a government headstone. Redirecting the mail. None of these are improved by being attempted in the first 48 hours.