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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Credit Union Case Study.pdf

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DCMS Discovers Millions in Estate Recovery Opportunities for Health System Client

Many hospitals and health systems are unknowingly hemorrhaging large amounts of potential revenue through reactive decedent account processes, and the numbers we see can be staggering. The good news is that proactive, automated approaches such as the customized solutions created by DCM Services can be a real gamechanger for your revenue stream.

Our video above showcases one health system client who increased their annual collections from $130,000 to $2.4 million with the help of DCM Services. Throughout the ongoing 8-year partnership, they’ve recovered over $19.1 million without adding new staff or expensive technology!

At DCM Services, we believe successful estate recovery begins with survivor sensitivity. Every interaction is guided by compassion, respect, and compliance, recognizing that behind every account is a family navigating the loss of a loved one. Our personalized approach helps organizations recover revenue responsibly while supporting families throughout the probate process.

Ready to recover revenue the right way? Contact us today to learn how DCM Services can close the recovery gap for your organization.

Mortgage Lenders are Leaving Estate Recovery Revenue on the Table

When a borrower passes away, the clock starts immediately. Probate windows are finite, estates move through the court system on their own timeline, and if you're not already in position when that happens, your options shrink fast. For second mortgage and HELOC portfolios especially, a probate claim isn't just one option among many. It's the only option. Miss the filing window and that balance gets written off with no path to recovery.

The good news is most of these losses are preventable.

Probate Data is Key in Consistent Recovery

First mortgage holders often underestimate how much probate data matters beyond the lien itself. Knowing when a borrower passes before delinquency hits gives you time to identify heirs, locate successors in interest, and stay ahead of your Regulation X and SII compliance obligations. The lien protects your priority position, but probate records are what connect you to the people you actually need to work with to reach resolution.

For junior lien holders, the math is straightforward. When the first lien takes priority and available equity can't cover both positions, your lien is functionally unsecured. Estate assets become your only recovery path, and the only way to access those assets is through a properly filed probate claim. The filing cost is minimal relative to what's at risk, and lenders who already work with DCMS on first mortgage accounts can extend that same infrastructure to junior liens without rebuilding anything from scratch.

Being Proactive is the Winning Strategy

Proactive probate strategy isn't a niche capability anymore. With access to 10.2M+ probate records, nationwide court coverage, and automated workflows that match deceased accounts to open estates, the tools exist to make this a standard part of how your team manages these portfolios. The lenders who treat probate as an afterthought are the ones absorbing charge-offs on losses that were entirely preventable.

If deceased borrower accounts are sitting in a queue waiting for someone to figure out next steps, Contact Us to learn how these funds can be recovered quickly, compliantly, and with compassion toward the estate executors.

The Probate Recovery Strategy Behind Significant Revenue Growth

Managing decedent accounts is one of the more overlooked and complicated revenue opportunities in financial services. Staying compliant across multiple states, identifying accounts efficiently, and training staff to handle estate conversations with care are challenges most institutions face without dedicated resources. DCM Services was recently featured in Global Banking and Finance Review exploring exactly how our probate recovery capabilities address all three, and what that means for your bottom line. Contact us to learn how we can build a tailored recovery plan for you!

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The Overlooked Banking Challenge Hidden Inside Probate Recovery

When a borrower dies, most institutions know how to close the loop on the account administratively. The harder question is what to do financially. In many cases, the answer is to write the balance off and move on. Not because there is no path to recovery, but because the path that does exist is messy, manual, and easy to miss. Probate is full of deadlines, court rules, filing requirements, and local variations that do not fit neatly into a standard collections workflow. DCM Services describes estate account resolution as a specialized process involving probate verification, compliant research, and communication with authorized representatives, rather than traditional consumer collections.

That distinction matters more than it may appear. Once an account becomes estate-related, the work changes. The institution is no longer simply managing a receivable, but instead it is navigating a court-supervised process that may require verifying a date of death, locating an open estate, matching the account correctly, filing a claim on time, and following the matter through to resolution. This process is governed by federal, state, and court-specific requirements, which is part of the reason many organizations struggle to handle it consistently at scale.

Why Probate Falls Through the Cracks

Probate recovery is one of those functions that is easy to underestimate until an organization tries to do it across a large portfolio. Court systems are decentralized, records are not standardized and deadlines vary. In some cases, the information needed to preserve a claim exists, but not in a form that can be easily found or acted on by a lender’s internal team. The result is that balances with real recovery potential are sometimes treated as unrecoverable simply because the process around them is too difficult to manage manually. Specialty probate collections require jurisdiction-specific knowledge, accurate estate identification, timely filing, and ongoing monitoring.

This is the overlooked part of the conversation. The challenge is not always a lack of assets. Often, it is a lack of infrastructure. If an estate is open and the deadlines are still active, recovery may be possible. But if no one has the tools or internal specialization to identify that opportunity in time, the account is effectively lost.

Probate is far from a niche legal process. According to the National Center for State Courts, probate and estate-related filings account for hundreds of thousands of court cases annually across the United States, reflecting the scale and operational complexity involved in estate administration and creditor claims.

A Different Kind of Servicing Model

This is where firms such as DCM Services have carved out a role. The company focuses specifically on probate, estate, and other specialty accounts, and its approach is powered by patented technologies and a nationwide probate database. The company’s Probate Finder technology covers more than 10.2 million probated estate records across 3,400-plus probate courts in the United States, while its DOD Finder database cross-references date-of-death information from the Social Security Administration, Probate Finder, and other sources.

That kind of infrastructure changes the economics of the problem. Instead of treating deceased accounts as edge cases that sit outside normal operations, institutions can begin to manage them as a defined category with its own workflows, controls, and performance expectations. This capability enables the creation of new or increased revenue streams while preserving brand integrity through compliant, empathetic account handling.

The operational burden surrounding probate is also significant. According to a survey from EstateExec, many estates take between six months and two years to settle depending on court timelines, creditor claims, and jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Compassion is Not Separate from Compliance

One reason this area is so easy to mishandle is that it sits at the intersection of legal process and human experience. The person receiving a notice or a phone call is often an executor, administrator, or family member already dealing with grief and paperwork. That makes tone just as important as timing.

Mike Rosenthal, CEO of DCM Services, has been vocal about that balance. His view is that institutions should not have to choose between recovering what is legitimately owed and treating people decently. In practice, that means approaching probate recovery as a process of resolution, not pressure and helping authorized representatives understand what needs to happen, while ensuring the creditor’s rights are preserved. The difference is respectful communication with verified executors and authorized representatives, as well as a compassionate and empathetic approach to recoveries.

That is not just a matter of brand language. It reflects the reality of the work. Mishandled outreach after a death can create reputational damage quickly, particularly for banks and lenders that depend on trust. By the same token, a recovery strategy that is so cautious it avoids probate altogether can leave meaningful value on the table. The challenge is to do both well: act promptly and act appropriately.

Why This Matters to Banking Now

For financial institutions, this issue is becoming harder to ignore. Deceased-account servicing may not be the most visible line item in receivables management, but it sits in a category that touches operations, compliance, customer experience, and revenue recovery all at once. This challenge appears anywhere an unpaid balance outlives the original account holder.

The institutions that get ahead of it are likely to be the ones that stop thinking of probate as a one-off legal issue and start treating it as a specialized operational discipline. That shift matters because once probate is understood as a workflow problem with data, deadlines, ownership, and accountability, it becomes much easier to see how much has historically been overlooked.

The importance of estate-related financial servicing is also expected to grow significantly over the coming decades. Research from Cerulli Associates estimates that approximately $84 trillion in wealth is projected to transfer between generations and to charities through 2045 in what is often described as the “Great Wealth Transfer.”

The Bigger Takeaway

There is a tendency in financial services to think of death as the end of the account lifecycle. In reality, it is often the beginning of a different kind of process—one that is slower, more regulated, and far more dependent on precision. Some balances will, of course, remain unrecoverable. But others are written off simply because no one is equipped to pursue them properly.

That is the real opportunity hiding inside probate recovery. Not aggressive collections, and not a purely legal exercise, but a more disciplined way of handling an area that has long been treated as too complicated or too sensitive to address. Companies like DCM Services are helping define an approach that is data-backed, court-aware, compliant, and measured in tone. For banks and lenders that have historically let these accounts fall away, that may be the clearest sign that the process after death deserves far more attention than it has received.

Demographic trends are also increasing the importance of estate servicing infrastructure. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, adults aged 65 and older are projected to outnumber children in the United States by 2034 for the first time in the country’s history, a shift expected to influence retirement planning, estate administration, and intergenerational wealth management across financial institutions.

Original Article: The Overlooked Banking Challenge Hidden Inside Probate Recovery

The Probate Recovery Gap: Why Leading A/R Providers Are Partnering to Close It

Author: Dawn Radecki - Director of Strategic Alliance at DCM Services

An Overlooked Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Every RCM organization, utility solution provider, and financial services platform encounters deceased-account balances. And in nearly every case, those accounts follow the same path: flagged, set aside, written off. Not because the money is unrecoverable, but because probate recovery demands specialized expertise, such as state-specific legal knowledge, court filing timelines, compassionate family engagement. These all fall well outside standard A/R responsibilities.

The result is a quiet but persistent revenue leak, compounded by compliance exposure and the reputational risk of mishandling sensitive communications with families and estates.

Why This Is Becoming a Strategic Priority

Three trends are pushing probate recovery up the priority list. Regulatory scrutiny around deceased-account handling is tightening across healthcare, utilities, and financial services. Clients increasingly expect end-to-end solutions from their vendors — and a gap in estate recovery is becoming a competitive vulnerability. And as portfolios grow and the population ages, the volume of these accounts is only increasing.

Organizations that address this now gain a differentiation advantage. Those that don’t will find the gap harder to explain to prospects who are asking about it.

Deceased-account recovery is one of the most overlooked revenue opportunities in accounts receivable, and the organizations solving it aren’t building from scratch.

Why the Smart Move Is a Partnership, Not an In-House Build

Building probate recovery in-house means hiring niche legal expertise across fifty states, developing compliance frameworks from scratch, and training staff for an entirely different kind of engagement. It’s a multi-year investment with a steep learning curve.

Partnering with a specialist eliminates that ramp-up. Through resell, referral, or strategic alignment models, organizations can embed probate-focused expertise into their offering with minimal operational disruption. This ensures you simultaneously recover incremental revenue, strengthen your compliance position, and protect client brands without adding complexity to their teams.

The best providers know when to build and when to partner. For deceased-account recovery, the answer is clear.

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DCM Services is the industry leader in estate and specialty account resolution. To explore partnership opportunities, contact us at info@dcmservices.com.