The Borrower Lifecycle Continues When Account Holders Pass Away

Financial services leaders should treat these instances as a predictable part of portfolio management rather than an exception

Financial services organizations have become incredibly sophisticated at almost every stage of the customer lifecycle. Between investing heavily in acquiring customers, underwriting them, servicing their accounts, identifying risk, managing delinquencies, and recovering losses, it's a complex, but well-oiled machine.

But there is one part of the lifecycle that doesn't always receive the same strategic attention: “What happens when a customer passes away?”

While that may sound like a narrow operational question, it's actually a much broader leadership question. Simply put, customers will inevitably pass away. It is a natural part of life. And while the customer relationship changes, the financial obligations and administrative responsibilities associated with an account don't simply disappear. This is a predictable part of managing a consumer portfolio. So, with that in mind, why do we still treat these accounts like exceptions?

Complexity isn't a good reason to accept a poor process

One explanation is that resolving accounts following a customer's passing can be complicated, and that's a fair point. An organization may need to determine when the customer passed away, whether an estate has been established, who is authorized to represent that estate, whether a claim can be filed, what deadlines apply, which jurisdiction rules govern the process, and more.

The regulatory framework recognizes that this is different from ordinary collections. For example, Regulation F treats an executor, administrator, or personal representative of an estate as the person who can act on behalf of the estate in relevant debt-collection communications, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There is a lot to get right, but Complexity motivates us to understand the process better and is not a reason to stop improving.

When something is difficult, the natural organizational response is often to push it into an exception queue:

• "Someone else will handle it."

• "We'll review it when it becomes delinquent."

• "We'll research it manually."

• "We'll deal with it when we have time."

Eventually, some of those accounts become write-offs because a reactive process never identified them or attempted to collect on them in time. That's an important distinction, and it's also the underlying problem.

Estate accounts aren't simply a collections issue

It’s arguably a mistake to view accounts following a customer's passing strictly through the lens of collections. While there is certainly a financial component, legitimate obligations don't disappear simply because a customer has passed away. The process also involves data, technology, compliance, operations, and the customer experience.

Most importantly, it involves people who may be navigating one of the most difficult periods of their lives. The goal should never be to treat a grieving family member like an ordinary delinquent customer. The goal is to identify the right party, understand the estate, follow the applicable requirements, and resolve the account correctly. That distinction is crucial with estate accounts. It is possible to protect the financial interests of an organization while treating surviving family members and estate representatives with respect. We do it every day at DCM Services; performance and compassion are both measures of whether we've designed the process correctly.

Technology should help us see what we can't see manually

Today’s technology can make a meaningful difference with artificial intelligence and automation. Much of it focuses on replacing manual tasks or reducing headcount. There is another, sometimes more valuable, application of technology revolving around the discovery of important work opportunities that humans would otherwise never see.

Consider a traditional estate-recovery process. An organization may know that some of its customers have passed away. But knowing that isn't enough. The organization needs to identify the relevant estate, determine whether recovery is appropriate, understand where that estate is in the process, and act within applicable timeframes.

That can become extremely difficult to do by hand, much less scale. Technology can change the equation by making identification more systematic. At DCM Services, for example, our technology is designed to automate date-of-passing verification and identify probated estates using a nationwide probate database. That allows organizations to move from manually searching for opportunities to systematically identifying them.

But technology alone isn't the answer. A bad process automated is still a bad process. The real opportunity comes from combining technology with specialized expertise, tight project management, compliance controls, and training employees to understand how to handle these situations with care.

A 7,500% lesson in operational thinking

We at DCM Services recently saw a particularly striking example of what can happen when an organization changes the way it approaches this problem.

A mid-size credit union client using DCM Service's Probate Finder OnDemand® technology generated $1.86 million in probate claims during its first year and reported a 7,500% return on their investment. One partial month of settlements was enough to cover a full year of the service. Those are impressive numbers, but the most interesting part isn't the results themselves, rather the ideas, processes, and technology that made the numbers possible. Read the full case study here.

Every organization has processes that have become so familiar that people stop questioning them. Everyone knows they're manual and inefficient. Everyone knows there are probably missed opportunities. But because the process has always worked well enough, it doesn't make its way to the top of the executive agenda. That is, until someone changes the process and discovers how much value was sitting behind it.

The executive questions financial services organizations should be asking

Not every financial institution needs to build the same estate-recovery operation, but but every organization managing consumer accounts should understand what happens when their account holder passes away.

And that starts with asking some basic questions:

• "How quickly do we know when a customer passes away?"

• "What happens to that account after we know?"

• "Who owns the process?"

• "How do we determine whether an estate exists?"

• "How do we identify the right representative?"

• "How do we make sure we're acting within the applicable requirements and deadlines?"

• "How much recoverable value are we currently writing off because our process doesn't identify it in time?"

Working through these questions will likely surface gaps in your organization's workflows and technology. That's often the stage we find clients in when they first reach out to us.

A more complete view of the customer lifecycle

The front end of the customer lifecycle has become increasingly sophisticated over the last few decades, understandably. But there is still a process to manage, value to protect, and compliance requirements to meet. And of course, there are still grieving people on the other side of the process who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Organizations that approach these accounts with that mindset will be better positioned to manage risk, protect revenue, and deliver a more thoughtful experience. How an organization handles the difficult and sensitive moments in a customer relationship often tells you how mature its overall operation really is.

So the next time your leadership team reviews the customer lifecycle, add one question to the agenda:

"What happens when one of our customers passes away?"

If the answer is complicated, that's okay. Complexity isn't the problem. The question is whether you're willing to build a better way to manage it, with the right balance of technology, expertise, performance, and compassion. If so, contact us today and we’ll get you what you need to significantly boost your estate collections revenue!

Probate Collections Start with Finding the Estate

For banks, credit unions, and consumer lenders, probate collections often begin too late.

When a borrower passes, the account does eventually get flagged. However, by the time someone checks whether an estate exists, where it was opened, who the estate executor(s) are, whether a claim can be filed, and what the applicable court requirements are, it’s usually after filing deadlines have passed and the account gets written off.

This sequence creates an avoidable problem: probate collections depend on timely estate identification, but many lenders still treat estate research as a “when we get to it” task. A more effective approach starts by making probate identification an integral part of the account lifecycle.

Probate Collections Require a Different Process

Traditional collections practices work because most accounts follow a relatively predictable path. Specialty accounts, including estates, bankruptcies, and conservatorships do not. These accounts can become subject to processes that vary not only by individual circumstance, but also by legal jurisdiction. The CFPB notes that a deceased person's debts are generally paid from the estate, while responsibility for managing those debts may fall to an executor, administrator, personal representative, or another authorized person under applicable law. 

That means a lender cannot simply transfer a deceased account to a conventional collections queue and expect the same process to work. The organization needs to answer different questions, such as:

• Where was the estate opened?

• Who is authorized to act for the estate?

• Can we file a claim before the deadline?

• What court requirements apply to this account?

• How will we monitor the account during resolution?

Finding Probate Estates is Just The First Problem

For many lenders, especially credit unions managing thousands of member accounts, the practical challenge isn't knowing that probate exists, but rather finding the estate among a large portfolio of accounts.

Manual research can require staff to search court records, identify potential matches, verify estate information, and determine whether an account belongs to the estate. The work becomes more difficult when lenders operate across multiple jurisdictions.

That is why probate estate identification deserves its own place in the recovery strategy.

Our  Probate Finder OnDemand® service, for example, is designed specifically to automate probated estate location, matching, and claim presentation. The platform provides nationwide probate visibility and uses our proprietary Probate Finder technology to reduce reliance on manual, court-by-court research.

Why Credit Unions in Particular Should Pay Close Attention

Credit unions have another reason to examine this process closely: member relationships can make specialty-account handling especially sensitive. A credit union may want to preserve the member relationship with surviving family members while still fulfilling its responsibilities as a creditor. That requires a process that not only distinguishes the deceased borrower from the person authorized to manage the estate but does so with compassion and empathy.

Federal guidance reinforces the importance of that borrower vs. estate representative distinction. The CFPB explains that debt collectors may communicate about a deceased consumer's debt with people authorized to act for the estate, while they generally cannot treat family members as personally responsible for the deceased person's debt. 

For credit unions, that makes accurate estate identification more than a recovery exercise. It becomes part of a controlled process for determining who the organization should communicate with and how the account should move forward.

Finding the Estate Is Only the Beginning.

Once an estate is located, lenders still need to determine whether a claim is appropriate, prepare the necessary information, submit it through the applicable process, and monitor the account through resolution. Our probate technology works constantly to perform deceased-account identification, which results in our signature service being able to ensure quick estate location, thorough claim validation, timely filing, and ongoing monitoring. Learn more about these processes on our product page.

Build Probate Collections Into the Account Lifecycle

Between our probate recovery solutions, and Probate Finder OnDemand® for organizations that want to maintain aspects of recovery internally, we strive to be flexible for any size organization. A large bank may want an end-to-end outsourced solution, but credit unions and smaller lenders may want to retain control of internal collections operations while adding specialized probate research capabilities.

For organizations still treating probate research as an exception handled after someone notices a deceased account, we urge you to contact us and start a discussion around how we can potentially help your bottom line and at a substantial ROI.

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 FAQ

• 1. What are probate collections?

  Probate collections are the process of recovering debt from a deceased borrower's estate through the applicable probate or estate administration process. For lenders, this can involve identifying the estate, determining who is authorized to act for it, validating the creditor's claim, filing required documentation, and monitoring the account through resolution.

• 2. How do lenders find a probate estate?

  Lenders can identify probate estates through court-record research, estate databases, and specialized probate research technology. Automated probate searches can help lenders match deceased borrowers to active estates and reduce the need for manual, court-by-court research.

• 3. Why are probate collections different from traditional collections?

  Probate collections require lenders to work through an estate rather than simply communicate with the borrower. The lender may need to identify an authorized representative, follow court procedures, meet jurisdiction-specific requirements, and monitor the estate through resolution. These differences make probate accounts a type of specialty account that requires a different workflow.

• 4. How can lenders identify accounts that need specialty collections?

  Lenders can establish specific triggers that route accounts out of traditional collections when a significant legal or life event changes how the account should be handled. Examples can include a borrower's death, bankruptcy, guardianship or conservatorship, power of attorney, or other circumstances that affect the parties authorized to act on an account.

• 5. Can lenders automate probate research?

  Yes. Lenders can use specialized probate research technology to automate processes such as deceased-borrower identification, estate location, borrower-to-estate matching, and other research tasks. Automation can help financial institutions identify potential probate accounts more consistently and reduce manual research.

• 6. How do credit unions manage probate collections?

  Credit unions can incorporate probate collections into their specialty-account workflows rather than handling each deceased-member account as an isolated exception. A defined process can help credit unions identify estates, determine the appropriate representative, meet applicable requirements, and preserve a consistent member experience while pursuing legitimate recovery.

• 7. When should a lender consider outsourcing probate collections?

  A lender may consider outsourcing probate collections when estate research, jurisdictional requirements, claim filing, or account monitoring exceed its internal resources or expertise. Another option is to keep recovery operations in-house while using specialized technology to automate probate estate identification and research.

Estate Collections: How the Great Wealth Transfer Is Rewriting the Rules

A Generational Shift in Wealth is Exposing a Gap Most Portfolios Haven't Accounted For, and it Has Nothing to do with Probate.

Over the next two decades, Cerulli Associates projects that approximately $124 trillion in wealth will transfer in the U.S., with roughly $105 trillion passing to heirs and $18 trillion to charitable organizations. This will be the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history. Most of the commentary around it is written for financial advisors and estate planners: how to prepare portfolios, how to talk to heirs, how to avoid probate, etc. Almost none of it is written for the people who actually service the accounts sitting inside that wealth, such as credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, utility accounts, and healthcare balances that don't pause just because a family is quietly navigating a parent's declining capacity. Estate collections, as an industry, has spent decades building processes for what happens after someone dies. The bigger, messier problem is what happens in the years before.

The Estate Collections Industry Was Built for What Happens After Death

Traditional estate collections is a post-death discipline: identify the date of death, locate the estate, file a probate claim, engage the executor. It's a mature process built around a single clear trigger event. The problem is that trigger event is arriving later and later relative to when an account actually needs specialized handling. As Americans live longer with chronic illness and cognitive decline, the gap between "someone else is now managing this account" and "this person has died" has stretched into years, not weeks, for a growing share of aging accountholders. A parent with early-stage dementia might have a durable power of attorney active on a mortgage account for three or four years before death. A conservatorship might govern a credit union member's finances well before any estate is opened. By the time a probate court gets involved, the account may have already been through multiple authority changes that a typical collections or servicing workflow never flagged, verified, or documented.

Powers of Attorney, Guardianship, and Diminished Capacity

Three legal mechanisms account for most of this pre-death complexity, and each creates a different verification problem. A durable power of attorney lets someone act on an accountholder's behalf, but its scope varies by document and by state, and it can be revoked, superseded, or forged. This confirms that a POA is current and broad enough to authorize a given transaction is its own compliance exercise. Guardianship and conservatorship, by contrast, are court-ordered and typically broader in scope, but slower to establish and easy to mishandle if a servicer doesn't recognize the appointment or misapplies it to the wrong account. And diminished capacity without any formal legal instrument in place leaves institutions with no clean authority to rely on at all, just a family member calling in, sincere but unauthorized.

None of these are decedent accounts. None of them show up in a probate filing. But all three now sit squarely inside what estate collections has to account for, because all three change who's actually managing money on an account that's still, technically, open and active.

One Trend Hits Different Pressure Points Across Every Portfolio

This wealth transfer will end up touching every industry of servicer differently, so you will need to prepare differently. Here are a few examples:

• Credit unions and banks — an aging member base means power-of-attorney and guardianship activity on deposit and loan accounts is becoming routine rather than rare, and misapplied authority is a direct member-trust risk.

• Auto lenders — an adult child managing a parent's vehicle loan under power of attorney, or a conservator authorizing a vehicle sale, both require a different verification path than a standard delinquency workflow assumes.

• Mortgage servicers — Regulation X successor-in-interest protections already require servicers to identify and correctly communicate with parties who have an interest in a property; power-of-attorney and guardianship scenarios extend that same obligation earlier, well before any death or transfer of title.

• Healthcare providers — a patient under conservatorship, or with an activated healthcare power of attorney, changes who can authorize billing decisions and payment arrangements, often long before end-of-life care becomes a factor.

Building an Estate Collections Strategy That Starts Before Probate

The fix looks a lot like the discipline estate collections already applies after death, just moved earlier. That means continuous verification of legal authority, not only date of death: confirming a power of attorney is current, properly executed, and broad enough to cover the transaction at hand. It means documentation standards specific to guardianship and conservatorship, so an appointment is recognized and applied to the right account the first time, not discovered after a dispute. And it means training frontline staff to tell the difference between a validly authorized representative and a well-meaning but unauthorized family member. This distinction matters as much for compliance as it does for preventing elder financial exploitation.

Organizations that build this capability are closing a compliance gap that opens years earlier than this process typically engages, and building the kind of institutional trust that a wealth transfer this large is going to reward or punish, depending on who got it right.

The Wealth Transfer Will Test Every Servicer's Definition of "Estate"

The Great Wealth Transfer will keep making headlines as an inheritance story. For anyone actually responsible for servicing accounts, it's a different story entirely, where estate collections starts long before a death certificate exists, and where the institutions that build for that reality now will be the ones still trusted by the next generation of accountholders when the money actually changes hands.

Are You Prepared? DCM Services Can Help!

We’re constantly working to stay ahead of socioeconomic factors that would otherwise contribute to consumer lenders being forced to write off decedent accounts that weren’t claimed within the deadline. And this is just one of the growing needs organizations like yours has for DCM Services to provide proprietary solutions like Probate Finder OnDemand® or our Signature Service. If you would like to learn more about our approach to estate collections, or if you have a major revenue gap in your portfolio due to unclaimed estate recoveries, contact us today!

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is estate collections?
Estate collections is the practice of identifying, verifying, and recovering or servicing accounts connected to an estate. It's traditionally understood as post-death probate recovery, but increasingly includes pre-death situations where a power of attorney, guardian, or conservator is managing an accountholder's finances on their behalf.

How does the Great Wealth Transfer affect estate collections?
As a historic volume of wealth moves from an aging population to heirs over the next two decades, more accounts are passing through extended periods of power-of-attorney or guardianship management before death, which means this side of the business has to account for years of pre-death authority changes, not just a single post-death trigger event.

What's the difference between pre-death and post-death estate collections?
Post-death estate collections is triggered by a confirmed date of death and typically involves probate court filings and executor engagement. Pre-death handling, by contrast, deals with active accounts being managed by a power of attorney, guardian, or conservator, where the original accountholder is still alive but no longer the one directing financial decisions.

Which industries are most exposed to pre-death estate account complexity?
Credit unions and banks with older member bases, auto and mortgage lenders, and healthcare providers all see rising volumes of power-of-attorney and guardianship activity as their populations age, each requiring a different authority-verification approach than standard delinquency or probate workflows.

What should organizations do to prepare for this shift in estate collections?
Build continuous processes for verifying legal authority, not just date of death, train staff to distinguish valid authorized representatives from unauthorized family contacts, and treat power-of-attorney and guardianship activity as its own compliance category rather than an informal precursor to probate.

What a 7,500% ROI Teaches Finance Leaders About Fixing Reactive Estate Recovery Processes

Every organization that involves consumer lending and finance has at least one process that everyone privately agrees is broken, but no one has had the bandwidth to fix. For a lot of companies managing claims, receivables, or estate recovery, that process looks something like this: manual searches, delayed identification, missed windows, and a recovery strategy that only ever reacts after value has already been lost.

Our recent case study from Probate Finder OnDemand® puts a hard number on what that inefficiency is costing your organization and what happens when it's automated instead.

The Problem: Recovery That Only Happens After the Fact

The case study client in question, a major not-for-profit financial services company in the Midwest, was running its estate recovery process manually, the way most organizations still do. When an account holder passed away, the team had to identify probated estates, track claim eligibility, and file within tight statutory windows. There was no systematic way to know which estates existed or where they stood in the process.

The result was predictable. Estates went unidentified. Claims filing deadlines were missed. Recoverable dollars simply disappeared into an inefficient pipeline, not because they weren't real, but because no one caught them in time.

This is a familiar shape of problem well beyond estate recovery. Any B2B function that depends on time-sensitive identification bleeds value the same way. The cost may not be visible on a P&L line because it's the money that was never even counted, as it never turned into a claim.

The Fix: Automating Identification, Not Just Filing

Instead of trying to work faster within the same reactive model, the company implemented Probate Finder OnDemand® to automate the identification process itself. Rather than relying on staff to manually search and cross-reference probate records, the system flagged probated estates automatically and routed them into the claims workflow. This turned a slow, manual search into a continuous, systematic process that didn’t require any new staff or hardware.

The operational shift mattered as much as the technology. Our solution integrated directly into existing systems, gave the team direct access to probate data, and freed up staff who had been spending hours on manual searches to focus on higher-value work. Efficiency gains both sped up the process and created capacity that could be redirected elsewhere in the organization.

The Results: What Automated Recovery Actually Delivers

In a single year, the shift from reactive to automated identification produced:

• $1.86M in probate claims filed

• 7,500% ROI (and growing)

• One partial month of settlements paid for a full year of Probate Finder OnDemand® access.

• A 26% probated estate location rate, meaning roughly 1 in 4 estates identified were ones the manual process would likely have missed entirely

The estates were always there. The company was failing to earn recoverable dollars because they were failing to see them in time. Using Probate Finder OnDemand® didn't invent value; it recovered value that already existed but was previously invisible to a manual process.

Why DCM Services is Your Organization’s Partner Solution

Results like these don't come from bolting a useful tool onto a broken process. Rather, they come from a partner that understands how recovery actually works end-to-end and is willing to help you create an optimized process. DCM Services has spent years helping organizations from many industries modernize exactly this kind of reactive, manual workflow, and combine deep domain expertise with technology that integrates cleanly into the systems their teams already use. We are a team that understands the compliance windows, the data complexity, and the operational realities that make estate recovery hard to get right.

If your organization is running claims, receivables, or recovery processes on a reactive, manual foundation, there's a strong chance you're leaving recoverable value on the table right now.

Contact us today to see what an automated approach could recover for your organization.

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Download the Case Study to Share with Your Team

Credit Union Case Study.pdf

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DCM Services Launches Major Upgrade to Probate Finder OnDemand® with New Functionality

MINNEAPOLIS – DCM Services, LLC (“DCMS”) and its sister company, Forte, LLC, the industry leaders in data and contact management solutions for the estate and specialty receivables recovery market, celebrate the launch of a major upgrade to the Probate Finder OnDemand application.

Probate Finder OnDemand provides client access to Forte’s patented Probate Finder® technology and automates robust and time-consuming probate location, matching, and claim presentation processes. All of this happens within a secure interface, simplifying the user experience and automating an otherwise manual process. Launched in 2010, its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model has grown to serve over 200 organizations spanning several end-markets including financial services, auto, retail, credit unions, government, and healthcare.

DCMS CEO Tim Bauer, reflected on the utility of the product, “Probate Finder OnDemand is the only SaaS tool of its kind providing our clients with a simple and efficient way to identify probated estates. It then goes further to allow our clients a seamless opportunity to file a claim on the probated estate. This new redesign provides more tools for our clients and makes it easier to use.”

Since its inception, the application has been continuously developed based on direct client feedback and user needs. The upgraded user experience offers impactful new features such as a notification system, insightful dashboard reporting tools, and an educational resource center. These features put relevant and actionable information in focus for Probate Finder OnDemand’s valued clients.

The newly enhanced Home dashboard puts your team in control with the perfect balance of insight and action.

Chief Technology Officer and creator of Probate Finder OnDemand, Dereck Eastman was ecstatic, “This new version of our application highlights DCMS’ perpetual focus on improving the products and services we deliver to our customers. The new design brings a fresh look and feel to the application while maintaining the core workflow of the product which continues to make it the easiest way for creditors to locate probated estates and present claims across the country.”

Sr. Product Manager and project owner Sara Brown said, “We pride ourselves in the innovative vision of Probate Finder OnDemand, and this new upgrade is the next step in the product evolution. The revamped dashboard empowers our customers with critical information and educational resources to help drive their success.”

Learn more about how Probate Finder OnDemand revolutionizes the probate recoveries process here →

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This press release was also featured on insideARM, AccountsRecovery.net, and Probatefinder.com.

About DCM Services
Minneapolis-based DCM Services is the industry leader in estate and specialty account resolution services, maximizing the value of client portfolios across financial services, healthcare, auto, retail, telecom, credit union, government and utilities industries through innovation and performance. Its recovery solutions offer a full range of services from proprietary web-based solutions to full outsourcing, maintaining an unmatched spectrum of innovative solutions that increase recoveries, protect brand value, and enhance survivor relationships – with respect and sensitivity. For more information on all DCM Services’ offerings, please visit www.dcmservices.com.

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