More Data Won’t Fix a Broken Decision Process

Most Organizations Have a Decision Problem Rather Than a Data Problem

Over the past decade, data leaders built warehouses, licensed new feeds and launched dashboards across the enterprise. Yet the same accounts still stall in the same queues. More information arrived, but better decisions didn’t follow. The gap is whether your information is actionable data: verified, matched to the right record, owned by a specific person and tied to a defined next step. Without knowing what you’re looking at, even excellent data sits in a report until someone happens to notice it.

Why More Data Doesn’t Guarantee Better Decisions

Every new data source adds value. It also adds clutter, review time and reconciliation work. When teams can’t tell which inputs matter, they slow down or fall back on the old process. The cost for this can be substantial. Gartner research estimates that poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million per year. That figure counts bad data. It doesn’t count good data that never reached a decision.

That second cost has a name: decision latency, the time between a signal arriving and someone acting on it. Latency is where value quietly hemorrhages. Picture a lender that receives a monthly file of possibly deceased customers. The file lands in a shared folder. An analyst reviews it when time allows. By the time an account moves, the estate’s creditor claim window may have closed. The data was there. The decision process wasn’t.

A Data Signal Is Not a Verified Account Event

Most data feeds deliver signals. Operations teams need events. The two are easy to confuse, and that confusion drives most downstream failures.

A data signal suggests something might be true. A name and date of birth resemble a death record. Mail comes back undeliverable. A phone number gets disconnected.

A verified account event confirms something is true, ties it to a specific account and carries enough context to act. A confirmed date of death, matched to the right account holder, with a known estate status, is an event.

Acting on unverified signals creates risk. A living customer flagged as deceased is a service failure and a potential compliance issue. Ignoring signals creates loss. Verification is what separates actionable data from the clutter. One source rarely gets you there, unless you have the tools and expertise we do at DCM Services.

The Four Requirements for Actionable Data

Actionable data meets four conditions. Miss one, and the chain breaks.

1. Verified signal
   The information is confirmed against authoritative sources, not just matched on probability.

2. Useful matching
   The event connects to the account, product and system where work actually happens, not just to a name in a file.

3. Clear ownership
   A named team or role owns each event type. “Operations” is not an owner.

4. Defined next action
   Each event triggers a documented step with a deadline: route the account, adjust contact, or file a claim.

Most organizations handle the first requirement well and assume the other three will follow. They usually don’t.

How to Connect Research Outputs to Company Operations

Research outputs often end life as files. Files aren’t workflows. Actionable data needs a destination, and these five moves give it one:

• Define the event
  Agree on what counts as confirmed and which fields every event must carry.

• Route into the system of record
  Send events where work is assigned instead of an inbox or spreadsheet.

• Attach a service level
  Give every event type a time-to-action target.

• Measure outcomes
  Track accounts resolved rather than flagged records.

This is where transformation programs succeed or stall. The technology usually works. The handoff usually doesn’t.

Where Technology Meets Expertise

Deceased and probated accounts show the problem clearly. The data exists across thousands of courts and records. The hard part is turning it into the right action, on the right account, before the window closes.

Here at DCM Services, we pair proprietary probate research and patented date-of-death technology with specialists who translate findings into action. Our probate research covers more than 3,400 courts nationwide. Verified events then move into defined workflows: claims prepared and filed, accounts routed correctly and surviving families treated with respect. The goal isn’t necessarily to have more data. Rather, we care more about actionable data and fewer missed decisions.

Quick Answers

What is actionable data?
Actionable data is information that is verified, matched to a specific account or record, assigned to an owner and linked to a defined next step.

What is the difference between a data signal and a verified account event?
A data signal suggests something may be true. A verified account event confirms it, ties it to a specific account and provides enough context to trigger action.

Assess Your Data-to-Decision Readiness

Before you buy another data feed, test the ones you already have. The next time a date of death match lands on your desk, use "Data-to-Decision Readiness” to look from signal verification to defined next actions so you can see exactly where decisions stall. Whether you do this or not, feel free to contact us any time, and we’ll be delighted to go over your organization’s specific situation with you.

Compliant Collections Processes Can Still Fail in Practice

Compliant collections processes can look solid on paper. There's a policy, a training module, and a sign-off log proving every relevant person reviewed it. The problem with that is a policy only states what should happen. It says nothing about what happens once an account stops behaving like a typical case. That gap creates real risk, and it rarely surfaces until an examiner, a court, or a frustrated customer finds it first.

What a Compliant Collections Process Requires

Most accounts move through a workflow built for the common case where details like the account holder and contact information is known. The next steps are predictable, and teams write policies for that common case. Audits then check two things: does the policy exist, and did staff complete training. Audits rarely test whether the process survives an account that breaks the pattern. That blind spot sits at the center of most compliance failures.

Specialty accounts expose that gap fastest. For example, an account holder passes away, which results in a balance in a bankruptcy filing, where a court or probate process takes over the case. Each of these demands its own steps: identify the right representative, verify legal status, follow court timelines. A truly compliant collections process plans for these cases in advance. Skip that planning, and someone improvises, which is terrible for compliance. Improvisation is hard to document, audit, or defend later.

Where Compliant Collections Processes Break Down

Look past the policy document, and three patterns repeat:

• Memory routes exceptions, not rules
  A veteran collector remembers which accounts need a different path. That knowledge lives with the person, not the system. When they leave, the account erroneously reverts to the standard path.

• Teams blur ownership at the handoff
  An unusual account often sits between teams. Collections assumes legal owns it. Legal assumes servicing still does. No one owns the resolution, so nothing moves.

• Documentation thins out where it matters most
  A routine file stays complete. A complicated file often has the biggest gaps, and is the most likely one an examiner will pull.

• Reporting shows activity, not outcome
  Dashboards track calls made and letters sent. Few track whether a flagged account actually reached resolution. A compliant collections process should report on outcomes, not just activity.

None of this means the policy is wrong. It simply means no one tested it against the hardest cases.

How to Test a Compliant Collections Process

Stop asking whether a policy exists and start asking whether you can prove it. Can you show, case by case, how a complex account moved while also having it correctly flagged, routed to the right team, and closed on a documented timeline? Can you prove that without leaning on one person's memory?

For organizations managing deceased, bankrupt, or court-supervised accounts, this isn't a hypothetical question. These accounts need a structured workflow of their own rather than an exception bolted onto a system built for something else. That means automated identification, so accounts never sit unflagged. It means a documented process from the moment a case surfaces through resolution. It means reporting that shows an examiner exactly what happened and when, not what should have happened.

The strongest compliance programs don't rely on the thickest policy manual. They rely on collections processes that hold up the moment someone actually checks.

If any of this resonates with you and your team when discussing your organization’s collections processes, contact us so we can take a look at your processes and potentially identify any gaps.

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The Federal Trade Commission's debt collection guidance offers a useful resource for understanding key consumer protection requirements and the standards that govern debt collection.

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!

Decedent Account Recovery: The Gap Your Metrics Were Never Built To Show

Most problems in your collections operation announce themselves. You get a complaint. A service level slips. Numbers move the wrong way and someone wants an explanation by Monday. You get the idea.

Uncollected decedent balances announce nothing. They generate no exception report, no variance, no escalation. They sit in an inventory that was never assembled, and every report you run comes back clean. That silence is why this gap survives inside well-managed organizations. Over time, this is shaping up to be a serious issue. Baby Boomers (ages 62-80) have an average individual debt of over $92,000, according to Experian.

Clean Numbers Are Not Complete Numbers

Look at how your recovery performance gets calculated. Dollars recovered, divided by the accounts in your working inventory. Now look at what sits in that denominator: Accounts you identified. Accounts that triggered the collections process. Accounts someone got assigned. An estate that opened in a jurisdiction you never searched is not in there. A balance tied to a death your scrub failed to match is not in there. An account where no estate ever opened, but assets still exist, is not in there.

The painful truth is that your rate holds steady because the hardest accounts were never counted against it.

Then the incentive turns strange. Add those accounts to your inventory and your percentage can fall even as your dollars climb. Go looking for issues like this and the scoreboard penalizes you. Do nothing and you post another solid quarter. So where does that leave you?

The Question Has No Owner

These balances cross too many desks to belong to any individual. Servicing considers the account resolved. Finance considers the loss booked. Recovery works with what it receives. Compliance monitors how contact happens, not whether it happens at all. So the question "how much are we failing to find" belongs to nobody, and questions without owners do not get asked.

The accounting reinforces it. Once a balance is written off, the pain stops. Organizations respond to pain. This one quit hurting the day it was reserved. It’s not even considered what could be accomplished with a little proactivity and the right partner.

What You Gain By Asking Anyway

Almost every improvement you can champion requires money. New headcount, new platform, new budget cycle, new business case, new competition with three other priorities.

This one moves the opposite direction. These balances are already written down. Whatever comes back lands as margin. You are not asking anyone to fund a discovery.

The discovery itself stays small and reversible. Run a portion of your inventory against nationwide court records and see what surfaces. Maybe the answer is modest. That is still worth knowing, and it cost you a conversation. Maybe the answer is substantial, and you just delivered revenue that no forecast anticipated.

Use What You Find to Change What You Count

Your reporting rate starts with total dollars recovered. However, then you add a metric most organizations never track: identification coverage. What share of your deceased inventory did you actually locate, and how long did locating it take? Coverage exposes what rate conceals. An organization finding 40 percent of its decedent accounts and recovering aggressively on them has a very different future than one finding 90 percent. The rate can look identical. The dollars will not. Measuring the coverage can shine a light on the gap.

Help Closing the Gap

Running your current reports harder will not identify these gaps. They were built to measure the work you assigned, and this is work for which nobody was assigned. It surfaces when someone decides to ask “how much is out there unrecovered?” You are in a position to be that someone.

DCM Services helps organizations answer that question with nationwide court access and technology built specifically for decedent account recovery. Contact us and we will show you what your inventory actually holds.

Decedent Account Recovery for Auto Lenders Fixes a Growing Revenue Leak

Auto Lenders are Facing an Increasing Number of Hurdles to Reduce Write-Offs and Maintain Compliance

Auto lending has changed dramatically over the past decade. Loan balances are larger, repayment terms are longer, and portfolios have become increasingly complex. While lenders continue investing in analytics, collections technology, and servicing strategies, one area often remains reactive: managing accounts after a borrower passes away.

An effective decedent account recovery partner can help lenders identify deceased borrowers sooner, pursue estate recovery opportunities before critical deadlines expire, and improve compliance throughout the recovery process. Rather than allowing these accounts to become unnecessary charge-offs that hurt their bottom line, lenders can implement proactive workflows that protect revenue while delivering a more compassionate experience for surviving family members.

Whether you're responsible for portfolio performance, collections operations, or regulatory compliance, understanding how deceased accounts impact recovery is becoming an essential part of modern auto lending.

Why a Proactive Decedent Account Recovery Procedure Matters More Than Ever

Vehicle prices continue to climb significantly. Loan amounts continue to reach record levels. Longer repayment terms mean borrowers remain in portfolios for six, seven, or even eight years. At the same time, more Americans continue financing vehicles later in life, increasing the likelihood that lenders will encounter deceased borrowers during the life of a loan.

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, auto loan balances have continued to grow while borrower demographics and lending patterns have shifted over time. These long-term trends create new operational challenges for lenders managing large consumer portfolios. When those accounts aren't identified early, the financial consequences extend well beyond missed payments. Accounts may continue through traditional collection procedures, probate deadlines can pass unnoticed, and opportunities to recover through an estate may disappear entirely. The result is avoidable charge-offs, unnecessary operational costs, and increased compliance risk.

Trends Auto Lender Leadership Should Monitor

Rising Loan Balances are Increasing Financial Exposure

The average financed vehicle costs considerably more than it did just a few years ago. Larger balances mean every unrecovered account represents greater potential loss. The Federal Reserve Household Debt and Credit Report continues to show auto loan balances at historically elevated levels, increasing lenders' exposure when loans become unrecoverable. When borrowers pass away before repayment is complete, even a small percentage of missed estate recoveries can translate into millions of dollars across a national portfolio.

Longer Loan Terms Increase the Likelihood of Deceased Accounts

Longer repayment periods naturally increase the probability that lenders will encounter borrower deaths before loan maturity. Industry research from Experian Automotive continues to show extended loan terms remaining common across both new and used vehicle financing. What once may have been an uncommon servicing event is becoming increasingly routine for large lending portfolios.

Turn Current Compliance Challenges into Future Revenue Opportunities

Recovering balances from an estate is a specialized process that requires accurate deceased identification, timely estate discovery, and a compliant approach to working with survivors and estate representatives. Many lenders still rely on reactive processes, only researching a borrower’s status after missed payments, repossession activity, or charge-off events occur. While reactive methods may address immediate collection needs, they can cause lenders to miss valuable opportunities to file claims against eligible estates.

A proactive decedent account recovery approach allows lenders to:

• Identify deceased borrowers earlier in the account lifecycle

• Determine whether a probate estate exists

• Evaluate potential recovery opportunities before deadlines expire

• Reduce unnecessary write-offs associated with missed estate claims

• Create a more consistent and compliant experience for surviving family members

Find and Recover What Would Be Lost Revenue from Estates with DCM Services!

Have you noticed these issues creeping up on your organization? Did we uncover a blind spot? Did you just run the numbers and are now panicking? We have solutions that can get you on track to close this revenue leak for good by collecting significantly more of these balances without increasing your workforce or operational overhead! In fact, one client recently reported a 7,500% ROI after partnering with us. Contact us today and we’ll tailor a solution to your organization!

If you found this article helpful and want to read more, check out our Knowledge Hub!

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FAQ

What is decedent account recovery?

Decedent account recovery is the process of identifying deceased borrowers, locating estate or probate information, and pursuing compliant recovery opportunities before accounts become unrecoverable.

Why is early deceased borrower identification important?

Early identification allows lenders to determine whether probate exists, identify authorized representatives, and pursue recovery opportunities before important filing deadlines expire.

Can deceased account recovery reduce charge-offs?

Yes. Earlier identification often creates additional opportunities to recover balances through estates, reducing unnecessary write-offs and improving portfolio performance.

How does decedent account recovery support compliance?

Specialized workflows help ensure communications occur with appropriate parties, documentation is maintained properly, and recovery efforts align with applicable estate and probate requirements.

How often should lenders screen portfolios for deceased borrowers?

Best practices vary by institution, but many lenders benefit from ongoing or regularly scheduled monitoring rather than relying solely on customer notification or returned mail.

What industries use decedent account recovery services?

While commonly used by auto lenders, decedent account recovery solutions are also valuable for a range of financial institutions, healthcare organizations, government agencies, utilities, telecommunications providers, and other organizations managing consumer accounts.