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Funeral Consumers Alliance of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties

(formerly Funeral and Memorial Planning Society)
Last revised
April 01, 2008
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  Here is the web version of our Checklist - Side B - of items for the attention of next of kin. Some or all of these tasks will need to be done at time of death. We recommend that this checklist be attached to the other papers mentioned in Checklist A.
Funeral Consumers Alliance
Checklist of items for the attention of next of kin.

Tasks

 Check off
when
completed
l. Consult written directions for funeral arrangements and disposition.  
2. Notify the funeral director named on the FCA Planning form (if available). Ask for enough copies of the death certificate for life insurance policies, banks, etc.  
3. Notify medical school, California Transplant Bank, or similar organization if arrangements have been made for donation of tissue, organs, or body.  
4. Decide on time and place of funeral ceremony, if any, in consultation with clergy, reader, or other appropriate persons. Contact musicians, pall bearers, speakers, caterers, or others who may participate in the day's events.  
5. List and notify immediate family, close friends, employer, and union. Notify lawyer, accountant, and executor or administrator of the estate.  
6. Decide whether memorial gifts are to replace flowers. If so, include notice in 7.  
7. Prepare newspaper notice if desired. The paper is likely to want full name, age, place of birth and death, occupation, degrees, memberships, military service, outstanding work, survivors in immediate family, time and place of services, if any. The Funeral Consumers Alliance requests that the following sentence be included if acceptable: "Funeral arrangements are in charge of (name of funeral director) through membership in the Funeral Consumers Alliance of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties."  
8. List distant persons to notify and arrange for letter or printed notice.  
9. Keep list of calls, flowers, notes, and arrange for acknowledgment.  
10. Make needed household arrangements, as for child care or hospitality for visiting relatives.  
11. Notify all life insurance companies affected, Social Security Office and Veterans' Administration if eligible for benefits. (The funeral director may assist in this.)  
12. Check for other death benefits, as from group insurance policies, credit union accounts, labor unions, pensions, etc.  
13. Notify credit card companies, book and record clubs and stores where deceased had charge accounts.  
14. Check for all installment payments coming due on merchandise, loans, or mortgages.  
15. Notify Post Office of forwarding address to relative or executor.  
16. Notify lodges, fraternities and other organizations of which the deceased was a member, and the schools and church that she or he attended. Also notify banks, credit unions or stockbrokers where deceased had accounts.  

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Funeral Consumers Alliance
463 College Avenue (P.O. Box 60448)
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650) 321-2109 phone and fax
Send email to FCA's Office Manager.
office hours: Mon - Thursday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Copyright © 2000-2008 by the Funeral Consumers Alliance of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.