2026-09-21 · 23 min read

How to find all accounts of a deceased person, step by step

How to find all accounts of a deceased person: the executor's order of operations — letters testamentary, the inbox, a 10-year IRS transcript, free databases.

Certified death certificates plus letters testamentary come first: without them the IRS, the banks, the credit bureaus and the Post Office all turn an executor away. With those in hand, work in this order — email inbox, then a ten-year IRS Wage and Income Transcript, then all three credit reports, then the free federal and state databases — because each step names institutions the next one can confirm. Extract the inbox before you close anything: Google says it cannot process a request to turn over account contents after a closure request.

What order do you actually do this in, and why does order matter?#

Every high-yield source is gated behind the same two documents, so collecting them first saves weeks of dead ends.

Certified death certificates and court appointment. The IRS will not release a decedent's records without the full name, last address and Social Security number, a copy of the death certificate, and either court-approved letters testamentary or Form 56, Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship. Banks ask for the same class of proof — the FDIC notes institutions will probably want a power of attorney or death certificate and court appointment as executor.
Redirect the mail. USPS has no online option here: you must go to a Post Office location with documented proof that you are the appointed executor or administrator, and USPS says plainly that simply having the death certificate is not enough.
Then the inbox. It is the densest list of accounts that exists, and it is the only step that gets harder if you wait.
Then the databases. Each one either confirms an institution the mail and the inbox already named, or adds one they missed.

One ordering trap is irreversible. Google warns that if you select to close the account, Google is unable to process any request to turn over the contents of the account at a later date. Extract first. Close last.

How do you find out whether there was a will, and where it is?#

The person holding the will usually has a legal duty to surface it. Under California Probate Code Section 8200, a custodian must deliver the will to the superior court clerk within 30 days after having knowledge of the death and send a copy to the named executor — and a custodian who fails to comply is liable for all damages sustained by any person injured by the failure. Florida runs a tighter clock: Section 732.901 requires the custodian to deposit the original will with the clerk of the court within 10 days after learning of the death. So call the lawyer, bank or friend you suspect is holding it, name the statute, and ask for the deposit date.

Once filed, the will becomes part of the county probate court record. But absence proves nothing: if a will is never lodged, or probate is never opened, it may never become public at all.

A safe deposit box may hold it, and access rules vary sharply by state. Michigan requires an interested party to petition the probate court and obtain a judge's order before the box is opened to look for a will or burial deed (MCL 700.2517). New York provides a parallel court-ordered procedure under SCPA 2003, under which the court may direct the institution to permit a named person to examine the box and inventory it in the presence of an authorized representative. Removing contents generally requires being appointed fiduciary first.

Why is the email inbox the best index of accounts?#

Because it is the only place where every institution writes to the person by name. Receipts, renewal notices, e-statements and login codes accumulate into an index nobody deliberately built. The scale is the point: a NordPass survey of 1,509 users fielded in April 2026 found the average person now handles about 120 personal passwords and 67 work passwords — down from the 2024 peak of 168, but still far above the roughly 80 NordPass counted in early 2020. You are not looking for five accounts. You are reconstructing a list the person themselves could not have recited.

Search the inbox for "statement", "invoice", "renewal", "verify", "policy number", "1099" and the names of any institutions the mail stream already revealed.

Can you legally open that inbox?#

Partly, and the limits are worth knowing before you ask. Section 2702 of the Stored Communications Act bars a provider of electronic communication service to the public from knowingly divulging the contents of a communication in electronic storage — that is why no provider simply hands an executor the mailbox. The statute permits disclosure with the lawful consent of the originator, an addressee or intended recipient, or the subscriber in the case of remote computing service. What the statute does not squarely address is who may exercise a user's rights after the user is gone, which is exactly where families hit the wall.

The bridge is the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, now adopted in most states. RUFADAA reversed the default: a fiduciary generally receives the catalogue of electronic communications — who corresponded with whom, and when — but not the content, unless the user affirmatively consented to content disclosure through an online tool, a will, a trust or a power of attorney. For account discovery the catalogue is often enough: a sender list names the banks, brokerages and insurers without exposing a single message.

What do Google and Apple actually hand over?#

Google offers three paths for a deceased user — close the account, request funds, or obtain data — and states outright that it cannot provide passwords or other login details. For content, Google requires a court order making specific findings, including that disclosure would not violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Apple's Legacy Contact route is faster but only if it was set up in advance: the contact presents the access key generated when they were designated, together with the death certificate. Without that key, Apple in the United States requires a court order naming the requester as the rightful inheritor, though some jurisdictions accept alternative documentation.

Both companies say the same thing between the lines: the pre-set tool beats the court. Google names Inactive Account Manager as the best way to say who should have access, and Apple's access key can be printed and stored offline.

How do you find the bank accounts?#

The FDIC's first recommendation is the unglamorous one: contact the institution and ask whether they hold an account in that name. Then handle the two cases where the bank is no longer where the paperwork says it is.

Dormant accounts are at the state, not the bank. Escheatment is the transfer of unclaimed funds to a state government, and the FDIC notes every state requires institutions to turn over abandoned property after a certain amount of time, usually between three to five years.
Failed banks. The FDIC or the acquiring bank may hold the account or box contents, and federal law requires unclaimed deposit accounts to be transferred to the state after 18 months. Check the FDIC unclaimed funds portal at closedbanks.fdic.gov/funds/.
A bank name you cannot place. FDIC BankFind Suite covers FDIC-insured institutions and branches back to 1934 and shows mergers, acquisitions and name changes; the Failures and Assistance tool names the acquiring institution — which tells you who holds the successor account today.
Credit unions. NCUA's Asset Management and Assistance Center manages share accounts from closed federally insured credit unions: confirm the credit union was liquidated by NCUA, check the unclaimed deposits list where last names and first initials are shown, and submit a member verification form, all described on NCUA's unclaimed deposits page. Timing matters — share accounts claimed within the 18-month insurance period are paid at their full insured amount; after that period expires, unclaimed shares are considered uninsured and payment may be made on a pro-rata basis. NCUA's Credit Union Locator at mapping.ncua.gov resolves a half-legible name on old correspondence.

How do IRS transcripts rebuild the account list for you?#

This is the single highest-yield document most executors never request. The IRS Wage and Income Transcript shows data from information returns such as Forms W-2, 1098, 1099 and 5498 — which means it names every employer, bank, brokerage, mortgage lender and IRA custodian that reported to the IRS. It is available for the current and nine prior tax years, giving you a ten-year map of financial relationships, with current-processing-year data generally available in the first week of February.

Two practical limits: the transcript is limited to approximately 85 income documents, above which it will not generate through an Individual Online Account and Form 4506-T must be submitted instead. And note the fee split — transcripts via Form 4506-T are free, while Form 4506 for an actual copy of a return carries a fee for each return requested. IRS Publication 559 covers the rest of a decedent's tax affairs.

Where do retirement accounts and pensions hide?#

Four separate searches, because no one database covers the field.

DOL Retirement Savings Lost and Found, created by the SECURE 2.0 Act. Two caveats. Access requires an ID-proofed Login.gov account — legal name, date of birth, SSN, a mobile device and photos of a driver's license — which is a real barrier for someone searching on another person's behalf. And coverage is partial: the database cannot help you find IRAs, or plans sponsored by government entities or religious organizations. Its data problem is worth knowing: the IRS initially determined it could not legally share Form 8955-SSA filings with DOL, so EBSA began collecting data from plan administrators on a voluntary basis, and DOL later gained access to Social Security Administration data to help populate the database. Expect gaps either way.
EFAST2 Form 5500 Search needs no account or login and searches by plan name, plan sponsor name, EIN or acknowledgment ID — so you can list every retirement and welfare plan a former employer maintained. Help desk: 866-463-3278.
Abandoned Plan Search identifies the Qualified Termination Administrator winding down a plan and its contact details; the Abandoned Plan Program coordinator is reachable at 1-866-444-3272.
PBGC. The unclaimed pensions search takes a last name and the last four digits of the Social Security number, and is refreshed quarterly. Separately, for terminated defined benefit plans whose benefits moved to PBGC or that bought annuities for people the plan could not find, PBGC's Missing Participants Program publishes searchable files and asks callers to phone 1-800-400-7242 and tell the representative they are calling about an MP (missing participants) benefit. That program does not cover governmental or military pension benefits.

What happened to Treasury Hunt, and how do you find savings bonds now?#

Treasury Hunt is gone: the tool for locating unredeemed or matured Treasury securities has been no longer available as of September 30, 2025, and treasuryhunt.gov now simply redirects to that notice. TreasuryDirect currently points people with concerns about unredeemed savings bonds to its forms section for guidance on submitting a claim. Note that some government pages, including USA.gov's unclaimed money chart, still list TreasuryHunt.gov — that link is now a dead end. Search your state unclaimed property program as well, since matured bond proceeds can end up there.

For bonds believed lost, stolen or destroyed, FS Form 1048 is the claim form. You can file it without serial numbers if you supply the specific month and year of purchase, the complete Social Security number, full names including middle names or initials, and the address. It must be signed in front of a notary or an authorized certifying officer and mailed to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. There is no filing fee.

What do the credit reports reveal, and who can request them?#

A credit report lists open accounts, which is precisely the list you are building. Equifax states that the spouse or executor of the estate may request the deceased person's credit report by mailing a request to each of the credit reporting companies, supplying the deceased's legal name, SSN, date of birth, date of death and last known address, plus a copy of the death certificate or letters testamentary. Experian asks an executor to mail the death certificate, a copy of a legal document with a court seal indicating you are the executor, and a government-issued photo ID.

Request all three. Because not all creditors report to every bureau, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion each hold a partially different list — and some creditors report to none of them. Once a bureau has the death notice, it flags the file "deceased — do not issue credit," so the notice is displayed when the report is accessed, which is a deterrent to identity misuse rather than a guarantee against it.

How do you find life insurance policies and annuities?#

The NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator is free: you submit the deceased's legal name, date of birth, date of death and Social Security number or ITIN along with your relationship to them, participating insurers search their records, and a matching company contacts the beneficiary directly. Set expectations on timing — NAIC says it may take 90 business days or more to complete the search. Since its November 2016 launch the locator had connected consumers with more than $10.1 billion in benefits across 460,952 matches through August 31, 2024.

Read a blank result correctly: the locator only reaches participating life insurance and annuity companies, and NAIC itself holds no policy or beneficiary information, so a "no match" is not proof that no policy exists. If the insurer may have merged or been renamed, work through the ACLI's Missing Policy Tips.

Where is the unclaimed money, and how much of it is there?#

There is no master list. USA.gov states there is no single place to look for all unclaimed money and publishes a chart of separate databases — unpaid wages and pensions, VA life insurance, FHA refunds, tax refunds, SEC harmed-investor funds, failed banks, failed credit unions, savings bonds, bankruptcy proceeds and Individual Indian Money accounts. The same page confirms you may be able to file for money owed to a deceased relative if you are their legal heir.

The federal pockets worth ten minutes each: unpaid wages at webapps.dol.gov/wow/, VA unclaimed life insurance at insurance.va.gov/UnclaimedFunds/Search, FHA mortgage-insurance refunds at entp.hud.gov/dsrs/refunds/, and unclaimed bankruptcy funds at ucf.uscourts.gov.

Then the states, where the money actually is. NAUPA says it plainly: searching is free if you use your official state government's unclaimed property website. MissingMoney, established in November 1999 as a joint effort between NAUPA and a financial services provider, covered 49 states as of 2024 — Hawaii excepted, with separate instructions provided for it. Critically, property is reported to the state of the owner's last known address, which is why NAUPA maintains a Search Beyond Your State resource: search every state the person ever lived or worked in, not just the last one. The scale justifies the hour — NAUPA reports states hold roughly $70 billion in unclaimed property, affecting about one in seven Americans, and returned $4.49 billion to owners in fiscal 2024.

Brokerage and transfer-agent holdings land here too. The SEC's Investor Bulletin on escheatment explains that custody of abandoned accounts passes to a state after a dormancy period that varies by property type — from as little as one year to as long as fifteen — and that a securityholder is deemed "lost" once correspondence is returned as undeliverable with no better address on file, the standard outcome when nobody updated the address. The SEC points tracers to NAUPA and missingmoney.com for each state's process.

Which method finds what, at what cost?#

Method	What it finds	Cost	What it needs
Email inbox	Receipts, e-statements, renewals — the broadest index of all	Free	Legacy Contact key, Inactive Account Manager, or a court order
IRS Wage and Income Transcript	Every employer, bank, brokerage, lender and IRA custodian that filed a W-2, 1098, 1099 or 5498, 10 years back	Free (Form 4506-T)	Death certificate, SSN, last address, letters testamentary or Form 56
Credit reports, all three bureaus	Open credit accounts and creditors	Free	Death certificate, court-sealed proof of authority, your photo ID
Direct call to the bank	Current accounts and safe deposit boxes	Free	Death certificate and court appointment
FDIC BankFind / closedbanks.fdic.gov	Successor to a failed bank; unclaimed deposits before the 18-month transfer	Free	An institution name
NCUA unclaimed deposits + locator	Share accounts at liquidated credit unions	Free	Last name, first initial, member verification form
unclaimed.org / MissingMoney	Escheated bank, brokerage and insurance holdings across 49 states	Free	Name, prior addresses in every state lived in
NAIC Policy Locator	Life insurance and annuity contracts; allow 90 business days or more	Free	Name, date of birth, date of death, SSN or ITIN
DOL Lost and Found, EFAST2, Abandoned Plan, PBGC	Forgotten 401(k)s, terminated plans, unpaid pensions	Free	Login.gov ID proofing for Lost and Found; name plus last 4 SSN for PBGC
FS Form 1048	Lost, stolen or destroyed savings bonds	Free	Purchase month and year, full SSN, certified signature
Paid asset-search firm	The same databases above	A share of recovered funds, capped by state law — often 10%	Nothing you cannot supply yourself

What does the whole search look like as a checklist?#

Work top to bottom; nothing below line 3 works until lines 1 and 2 are done.

What will you never find?#

Say this part out loud to the family early, because the searching otherwise never ends.

Self-custodied crypto is unrecoverable by design. Blockchain transactions are irreversible, and if the private keys are lost the coins are gone — there is no institution to subpoena and no escheatment path. A widely cited 2017 Chainalysis analysis estimated 17% to 23% of the then-existing Bitcoin supply, roughly 2.78 to 3.79 million BTC, may be permanently lost, largely to forgotten keys and discarded hardware. Treat that as an order-of-magnitude figure, not a measurement: it is nearly a decade old, the blockchain does not flag lost coins, and models infer loss from dormant addresses — and long dormancy can simply mean patience.

Accounts gated behind a phone nobody can unlock leave a catalogue entry and no way in. Paperless-only services with no mail, no tax form and no credit-bureau relationship may never appear in any of the searches above.

Do paid asset-search services find anything the free databases do not?#

No, and several state treasurers say so directly. Vermont's Treasurer limits heir-finder fees to 10 percent of the total property value and tells residents they can always search and obtain funds themselves. California's program is free to claim through, and while state law permits third parties to charge up to 10 percent, the official process at claimit.ca.gov costs nothing. The FDIC is equally blunt: you do not need anyone's help to search the state for your unclaimed property, and you do not need a service to help you make a claim.

Fee caps vary by state and change with legislation, so check your own state's rule rather than a national table — but the direction of travel is the same everywhere: the cap exists because the service is optional. The FTC's guidance is the filter to apply to any inbound offer: the government will not call or text asking you to pay to search for unclaimed funds, an upfront "processing" fee or a suddenly extended deadline is a scam signal, and state unclaimed-property programs do not text alerts. Report suspected scams at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FDIC's Tips for Finding Lost or Forgotten Money covers the same ground for nothing.

What should exist beforehand so nobody has to do this?#

A will that never mentions digital assets leaves the executor arguing with a terms-of-service agreement instead of exercising a right, because RUFADAA only overrides the provider's default when the user consented in an online tool, a will, a trust or a power of attorney. The fix is an inventory of locations, not secrets: one line per institution, the drawer or safe where the key lives, and whether losing it costs money or only memories.

List institutions, not credentials. Bank, brokerage, insurer, employer plan — name and rough purpose.
Record where keys and recovery phrases are stored, without writing those credentials into the document itself.
Never put passwords in a will. A will can become part of the public court record, and passwords change long before an estate plan is updated.
Set Google's Inactive Account Manager and name an Apple Legacy Contact; print the access key and store it offline.
Name the will's custodian in writing, so nobody has to guess which lawyer or bank holds it.
Keep one paper anchor — a recent tax return and a recent statement from each institution.

If you want a concrete format, our guide to building a digital handoff binder walks through what belongs in it and what must stay out. Proceedly is built on the same principle: it is a business-continuity check-in, and if you miss it past a grace window, a person you name confirms — or on a paid plan it releases automatically — before your encrypted handoff plan reaches the people who depend on you. It holds your instructions and where the keys live, never the passwords themselves.

FAQ#

How long does the IRS transcript route take, and how far back does it reach? Ten years — the current and nine prior tax years — and current-processing-year data generally appears in the first week of February. Transcripts requested on Form 4506-T are free; copies of full returns via Form 4506 carry a fee for each return.

The NAIC locator found nothing. Does that mean there was no policy? No. The locator only searches participating life insurance and annuity companies, and NAIC holds no policy data of its own, so a blank result is not proof. Follow up with the ACLI's Missing Policy Tips and check the state unclaimed property databases.

Do I have to search states the person left decades ago? Yes. Unclaimed property is reported to the state of the owner's last known address, which is why NAUPA maintains a Search Beyond Your State resource.

Can I get the Gmail password? No. Google states it cannot provide passwords or other login details under any of its three request paths. Content disclosure requires a court order making specific findings, including that disclosure would not violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Who reports the death to Social Security? Usually the funeral director, if you give them the Social Security number; a family member can also report it. SSA accepts death reports only by phone or in person — not online or by email. SSA cannot pay benefits for the month of death, so a payment arriving the following month must be returned.

How do I cut the junk mail while I am mining the mail stream for clues? USPS points executors to the Deceased Do Not Contact list at DMAchoice.org, and says advertising mail should decrease within three months of registering the deceased's name.