Steps Your Executor Should Take to Protect Your Estate
- Instruct relatives and funeral homes to refrain from posting personally identifiable information online, including your birth date and address.
- Contact credit card companies and bank accounts to inform them of the accountholder’s death.
- Notify banks, lenders, and other institutions that the decedent has passed away.
- Provide notice of the death to the Social Security Administration.
- Leave detailed instructions on how to access your credit monitoring accounts, so your executor can monitor reports for any unusual activity.
- Notify major credit reporting agencies of the decedent’s death, so no one can open new lines of credit. Have the account marked “Deceased,” so the frozen account can’t be unfrozen later.
- Ensure that the decedent’s social security number isn’t cited on any document that the public has access to.
While taking these steps to keep an estate safe from identity thieves may seem challenging and exhausting, they help prevent criminals from making succession all the more difficult.
