Verify Deceased Individuals Using Obituary Data
Death Verification API
Verify whether an individual is deceased using obituary and funeral home data sources.
ObituaryMonitor's Death Verification API helps businesses identify and verify deceased individuals using obituary records, funeral home websites, memorial sites, and related public death-notice sources.
Built for probate, estate administration, insurance, compliance, skip tracing, legal, and investigative workflows. Need county-level notice streams instead? See Death-by-County Feed API.
Built on one of the largest actively monitored funeral-home coverage networks in the United States
ObituaryMonitor continuously monitors thousands of funeral home and obituary sources—giving the Death Verification API access to obituary and death-notice data that manual searches and generic databases often miss.
Thousands of monitored sources
Daily source refreshes
Source-attributed results
Business API access
How It Works
Submit identifying information about an individual. The API searches available obituary and death-notice sources and returns the strongest available match.
Supported inputs
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth month/year, when available
- City
- State
- Address, optional
Sample API Workflow
How teams typically integrate death verification into an existing CRM or case system.
Your system submits identifiers; the API returns structured results your team can route into review queues, case files, or compliance workflows.
Sample API Request & Response
Typical B2B lookup: full name, month/year of birth, and last known city/state—exactly what probate, asset research, and skip-trace teams send from a CRM or case file.
{
"name": "John Smith",
"dob_month": 3,
"dob_year": 1948,
"last_known_city": "Dallas",
"last_known_state": "TX"
}POST /api/v1/verify
Authorization: Bearer om_live_YOUR_KEY
Content-Type: application/json
{
"first_name": "John",
"last_name": "Smith",
"dob": { "month": 3, "year": 1948 },
"address": { "city": "Dallas", "state": "TX" },
"client_ref": "record-88421"
}Most integrations map name → first_name/ last_name, DOB month/year → dob, and city/state → address. Full schema: /docs/api/verify.
Visual match (same case)
- Matched name
- John A. Smith
- Date of death
- November 18, 2024
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Source
- Funeral home obituary
- Obituary
- example.com/obituaries/…
A likely obituary match was found.
{
"result": "found",
"confidence": 0.92,
"review_recommended": false,
"match": {
"matched_name": "John A. Smith",
"death_date": "2024-11-18",
"location": "Dallas, TX",
"obituary_url": "https://example.com/obituaries/john-a-smith-dallas",
"source": "Example Funeral Home",
"source_trust": "stored"
},
"interpretation": "A likely obituary match was found."
}High-confidence matches include obituary URL, geography, source attribution, and an interpretation your team can store on the case record.
{
"result": "not_found",
"confidence": 0,
"not_proof_of_life": true,
"match": null,
"interpretation": "No matching obituary was found in the searched sources for the provided identifiers. This is not proof the person is alive."
}Important disclaimer
A not_found result means no qualifying obituary appeared in the searched sources for the identifiers you provided. It is not proof the person is alive and is not a government death-registry result. Responses include not_proof_of_life: true explicitly.
Full request/response reference, scoring, and extended search depth at /docs/api/verify.
What We Return
Depending on available source data:
Use Cases
Programmatic death verification for teams that need obituary-based checks inside internal systems and workflows.
Probate & estate administration
Confirm decedent status before creditor notices, asset transfers, and estate administration workflows.
Debt collection & asset recovery
Verify debtor deaths using obituary sources before account handling, recovery, and compliance review.
Insurance & benefits
Support claims and beneficiary workflows with obituary-based verification and source attribution.
Skip tracing
Identify deceased subjects in skip trace and locate workflows using available obituary and death-notice sources.
Legal and investigative workflows
Integrate death verification into case management, diligence, and investigative review processes.
Genealogy and research
Support research teams with programmatic obituary lookup where historical source coverage is available.
Common Death Verification Use Cases
Businesses use a death verification API when they need to confirm whether someone has died inside an existing workflow—not as a one-off web search. Probate and estate administration teams often verify decedent status before creditor notices, beneficiary outreach, or asset transfers. An obituary-based API searches available funeral home websites, memorial pages, and related death-notice sources, then returns a match with confidence scoring and a source URL teams can reference in diligence files.
Probate, estate administration, and legal workflows
Estate attorneys and trust administrators frequently need to verify deaths across a portfolio of names tied to cases, trusts, or dormant accounts. Manual obituary searches do not scale when matter volume grows or when subjects are spread across states. A death verification API lets firms submit identifiers—name, date of birth, city, state, and optional address—and receive structured results they can route into case management, compliance review, or internal audit systems. Results are based on available obituary sources; a not-found response means no matching obituary was found in the searched sources, not proof the person is alive.
Insurance claims, skip tracing, and compliance
Insurance and benefits teams use obituary verification to support claims handling and beneficiary workflows without relying on incomplete or delayed official records alone. Skip tracing and debt collection operations use the same capability to identify deceased subjects before further contact attempts, reducing compliance risk and wasted field effort. Compliance and investigations groups benefit from source attribution: each API response can include the obituary URL, funeral home name, and supporting evidence snippet so reviewers understand where a match came from and how strongly identifiers aligned.
ObituaryMonitor's Death Verification API is designed for these operational use cases— programmatic lookup with confidence scoring, not consumer obituary alerts. Teams evaluating API access can also request a demo to review sample results, discuss volume and pricing, and walk through integration options before credentials are issued.
API Pricing & Pilot Access
Verify API pricing is based on monthly verification volume, lookup pattern, and expected usage. A verification request may search multiple obituary and source signals internally, but customers are generally billed by API request volume unless otherwise agreed.
Most customers in the 1,000–5,000 searches/month range pay around $449/month, with final pricing based on expected volume and usage pattern.
Sandbox access is available for integration testing and workflow validation before production. Higher-volume workflows, batch processing, custom source coverage, or enterprise requirements can be quoted after we understand your lookup pattern.
| Usage level | Best for |
|---|---|
| Sandbox / Pilot | Testing the API and sample workflows |
| 1,000–5,000 searches/mo | Early production and recurring verification workflows |
| 5,000+ searches/mo | Higher-volume or custom API usage |
Questions? sales@obituarymonitor.com
Why ObituaryMonitor
Built for business teams that need obituary-based verification with transparent source attribution—not a consumer alert product.
- Obituary-based verification with source attribution
- Actively monitored funeral home and obituary sources
- API access for internal business workflows
- Historical obituary search where available
- Confidence scoring based on available identifiers
Matching Confidence
Each response includes a confidence score based on identifying information such as name similarity, DOB alignment, geography, address alignment, and source quality.
A not-found result means no matching obituary was found in the searched sources. It is not proof the person is alive.
Need one-time death or obituary verification instead of ongoing monitoring? Request API access and we'll provision a trial account for your workflow.
Request API Access
Tell us about your workflow and expected verification volume. Our team will follow up with API access options and onboarding details.
- Response within one business day
- Business and API access only—no self-service checkout yet
- Prefer email? sales@obituarymonitor.com
Not ready for API credentials? Request a demo to review sample results, discuss your use case, and learn about pricing before committing.