Send borrower and account records
Name plus city, state, or birth year for each account holder, borrower, or guarantor. Use your account or loan number as client_ref.
Solutions · Banks & lenders
Find out a borrower has died from the obituary, not the next missed payment.
Check account holders, borrowers, co-borrowers, and guarantors against 17,565+ funeral-home and newspaper obituary sources. Each match comes with a confidence band and a link to the obituary, so your estate servicing team can act on evidence instead of waiting for a family member to call.
✓Test keys on request✓Obituary link on every match✓Custom pricing
POST/api/v1/verify/batchBorrower and guarantor on one loan, checked in one call. Fictional data.
{ "items": [
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-55120:borrower",
"first_name": "Harold", "last_name": "Whitcomb",
"address": { "city": "Toledo", "state": "OH" },
"dob": { "year": 1941 } },
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-55120:guarantor",
"first_name": "Ruth", "last_name": "Whitcomb",
"address": { "state": "OH" } } ] }
→ 200
{ "results": [
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-55120:borrower", "result": "found",
"confidence_band": "high",
"match": { "death_date": "2026-09-14",
"obituary_url": "https://…/obituaries/…" } },
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-55120:guarantor", "result": "not_found" } ] }In short
How can a bank find out that a customer or borrower has died?
Most banks hear about a death from the family, a returned statement, or a payment that stops. A faster signal is the published obituary: ObituaryMonitor checks a name plus a city, state, or birth year against funeral-home and newspaper obituaries and returns found, possible_match, or not_found with a confidence band and the obituary link. Your team reviews the evidence and decides the account action under your own policy.
| Sources | 17,565+ funeral-home and newspaper obituary sources |
|---|---|
| Inputs | Name plus city, county, state, or birth year, with your own account reference |
| Results | found, possible_match, or not_found, with a confidence band and obituary link |
| Volume | 50 names per batch call, async jobs up to 5,000 rows, or a Screening Report for a whole portfolio |
| Not | A consumer report, an official death certificate, or the Death Master File |
The cost of finding out late
What it costs to learn about a death late.
Outreach keeps going to a decedent
Statements, past-due notices, and collection calls keep going to someone who has died. That upsets the family and gives your complaints team work it did not need to have.
Decedent accounts sit open and exposed
A deposit account, card, or line of credit tied to a deceased customer is a target for misuse. The longer nobody flags it, the longer unusual activity looks like normal activity.
The estate claim window narrows
A delinquent loan often turns out to be a deceased borrower. Finding out months later can leave your team working through an estate that is already well along, with less time to present a claim. Check timing with your counsel.
What changes
What your servicing and risk teams get.
An earlier signal, with the source attached
Learn about a death from the published obituary, which can come before a family member calls or a death certificate reaches your branch. The obituary link goes straight into the case file.
Fewer contacts to the deceased
Check accounts before a dunning cycle, a mailing, or a collections placement, and pull matched decedent accounts out of outreach while your team reviews them.
Guarantors and co-borrowers covered too
Check everyone tied to a loan in the same call. Your client_ref comes back on each result, so a match on a guarantor lands on the right note without extra matching work.
A cleaner path to estate servicing
High-confidence matches route straight to your estate or decedent-account team. Possible matches go to an analyst queue. not_found results stay in normal servicing.
Portfolio reviews without an integration
Send a loan or deposit file once and get a CSV and PDF report of who has a matching obituary. Useful before a charge-off review, a portfolio sale, or a dormant-account cleanup.
Ongoing watches on open exposure
Register borrowers and guarantors you are still carrying. If a matching obituary is published later, your system gets a signed webhook with your reference on it.
Which product
Three ways banks and lenders use it.
Verification API
Check accounts in your workflow
Verify a name with a location or birth year from your servicing or collections system. Get found, possible_match, or not_found with a confidence band. Batch 50 per call, or async jobs up to 5,000 rows.
Ongoing watches
Watch open loans and accounts
Register a borrower, guarantor, or account holder once. We notify your system by signed webhook if a matching obituary appears.
Screening Reports
Review a whole portfolio once
Send a loan or deposit file as CSV. Get back a per-row result with obituary links as CSV plus a PDF report. Quoted per list.
Workflow
From account file to estate servicing.
We search published obituaries
Funeral-home websites and newspaper obituary sections, matched against the details you sent.
Review the evidence
Each match carries a confidence band and the obituary link, so an analyst can confirm the right person before any account action.
Route to estate servicing
Move confirmed matches to your decedent-account process, pause outreach, and keep possible matches in review.
DMF access and obituaries
Why don't banks rely on the Death Master File alone?
The Social Security Death Master File is the source most lenders think of first, but access to the Limited Access DMF is restricted. Subscribers go through NTIS certification and agree to use rules, and after 2011 public distribution of the file was curtailed. Coverage and freshness for commercial users can lag or leave out records.
Published obituaries fill a different gap. Families and funeral homes often post them soon after a death, they are public, and they name the person, the place, and often the date of death. Each match comes with a link your analyst can open and read, which makes the evidence easy to review and keep in the file.
Many teams use both: a government file where a process requires one, and obituary evidence for earlier signals and for the records the government file does not reach. ObituaryMonitor is not the DMF and does not replace it where your policy or regulators require it. Check with your compliance team on which source each process needs.
- Limited Access DMF: restricted, certification required, can lag
- Published obituaries: public, timely, with a source link you can read
- Neither one alone confirms a death for every purpose. Your policy decides what counts as confirmation
Fits your systems
Where matches land in your systems.
Servicing and core banking queues
Batch or async results come back with your client_ref, so matches post against the right account or loan number in your servicing system or case tool.
Estate and decedent-account teams
Ongoing watches post a signed webhook when a matching obituary appears, ready to open a case for your estate servicing team with the obituary link attached.
Portfolio, risk, and charge-off reviews
Screening Reports arrive as CSV plus a PDF report, with an audit log available, for a one-time review by your portfolio or risk team.
Plainly
What you get, and what you do not.
It is
- Obituary evidence with a source link for each match
- A confidence band so you can route matches to servicing or review
- Ongoing watches on borrowers, guarantors, and account holders
- One-time Screening Reports for a whole loan or deposit portfolio
It is not
- A consumer report. Not for FCRA-regulated decisions such as credit eligibility
- An official death certificate or government death registry
- The Social Security Death Master File
- Proof of life when nothing is found
FAQ
Questions from banks and lenders.
Is this a replacement for the Death Master File?
No. ObituaryMonitor reads published obituaries from funeral-home websites and newspapers. It is not the DMF or a state death index. Many lenders use it beside a government file to get an earlier signal and a source they can read, and to cover records their DMF access does not.
Can we check guarantors and co-borrowers, not just the primary borrower?
Yes. Send each person tied to the loan as a separate item in a batch call, or register each one as a watch. Your client_ref comes back on each result, so you can tag them as borrower, co-borrower, or guarantor on the same loan number.
Can we screen a whole loan or deposit portfolio?
Yes. A Screening Report reviews a large file once and returns found, possible_match, or not_found per row with obituary links, as CSV plus a PDF report. It is quoted per list, based on list size and look-back period. For files up to 5,000 rows you can also use async API jobs.
How do matches get to our estate servicing team?
Results carry your account or loan reference. Most teams send high-confidence matches straight to their decedent-account queue, put possible matches in front of an analyst, and leave not_found accounts in normal servicing. Watches notify your system by signed webhook when a new obituary matches.
Can results be used for credit decisions?
No. ObituaryMonitor is not a consumer reporting agency, and results cannot be used for FCRA-regulated decisions such as credit eligibility. They are evidence for servicing, outreach, and fraud review, where your team makes the final call.
Does a match count as confirmation of death?
A match is published evidence, not an official death certificate or a legal determination of death. Many teams use a high-confidence match to pause outreach and open an estate case, then request a death certificate or other documents their policy requires. Check with your compliance team on what your process needs.
What if no obituary was published?
Then we return not_found. Not every family publishes an obituary, so not_found is not proof of life. You can register the person as an ongoing watch so your system is notified if a matching obituary appears later.
How is it priced, and can we test first?
Custom pricing based on your volume and lookup pattern, and Screening Reports are quoted per list. Test keys are available on request through sales, using the same endpoints and response shapes as production.