Losing a family member brings grief alongside a list of financial and legal tasks that have real deadlines, and knowing the order of operations can make those weeks easier to get through.

What should you do in the first few days?

If your family member was a veteran, VA regional offices can help with a burial allowance toward funeral and transportation costs, or with memorial items such as a headstone or flag; reach the VA benefits hotline at 1-800-827-1000 (TTY: 711), Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET.

• Notify close family, friends and clergy, and arrange the funeral, burial or cremation.
• Alert the deceased's employer, union or professional organizations, since bereavement leave, a final paycheck, unused vacation pay or a union death benefit may apply.
• Request several certified copies of the death certificate from the funeral home or your county's records office; agencies and insurers generally ask for an original or certified copy, not a photocopy.

How do you report the death to Social Security, and what benefits might survivors receive?

Report the death to the Social Security Administration by calling 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778); funeral homes often make this report for the family when given the deceased's Social Security number.

If a benefit payment for the month of death or any later month arrived by direct deposit, ask the bank to return those funds to Social Security; a paper check for that period should not be cashed and should instead be mailed back to Social Security.

A surviving spouse who was living with the worker at death, or a spouse living apart who qualifies for benefits on the worker's record, may receive a one-time $255 payment, and an eligible child can receive it if there is no qualifying spouse; the application must be filed within 2 years of the death.

Monthly survivor benefits can also go to a spouse age 60 or older (50 or older if disabled), a spouse of any age caring for the worker's child who is under 16 or disabled, an unmarried child under 18 (or under 19 and a full-time student), a child disabled before age 22, or a dependent parent age 62 or older; a surviving divorced spouse may qualify as well.

What happens to retirement accounts and pension benefits?

Contact past employers about any pension plan and the custodian of any IRA to review who is named as beneficiary and what distribution choices apply.

For a 401(k), IRA or similar account whose owner died after 2019, federal law generally requires most beneficiaries to withdraw the full balance within 10 years; a surviving spouse, a minor child of the owner, a disabled or chronically ill beneficiary, or a beneficiary not more than 10 years younger than the owner can instead stretch withdrawals over their own life expectancy.

A surviving spouse who inherits the account typically has more options than other beneficiaries, including keeping it as an inherited account, rolling it into their own IRA, or following the 10-year rule.

In most 401(k) plans, a married participant's spouse is automatically the beneficiary unless the participant named someone else with the spouse's written, witnessed consent, so it is worth confirming who is actually on file.

A traditional pension paid as a lifetime annuity may already build in a survivor annuity worth 50% to 100% of what the participant received, depending on the payment option chosen at retirement.

What should you do about insurance and other benefits?

Locate life insurance policies, including any group coverage through an employer, and file a claim with each insurer; also check for mortgage insurance, credit life insurance and accidental death coverage.

The death of a covered employee is also a COBRA qualifying event: the employer generally must notify the health plan within 30 days, the plan then has 14 days to send an election notice, and a surviving spouse or dependent can elect up to 36 months of continuation coverage, longer than the 18 months available after a job loss.

If the death causes the family to lose its current health coverage, that loss also opens a Marketplace Special Enrollment Period, with 60 days to pick an ACA plan and coverage starting the first day of the following month; being offered COBRA does not take that option away.

• Retitle jointly held bank accounts, vehicles and real estate, and notify credit card companies of the death.
• Keep a list of assets, and keep mortgage and insurance payments current while the estate is settled.

What estate and tax deadlines matter in the months that follow?

File the will with the probate court and notify creditors following your state's process; a probate attorney can confirm the deadlines that apply where you live.

If the estate is large enough to owe federal estate tax, Form 706 is generally due within 9 months of the date of death, and Form 4768 can request an automatic 6-month filing extension, though the estimated tax is still generally due within that first 9 months.

• Update beneficiary designations on your own retirement accounts, transfer-on-death accounts and insurance policies if your family member was named on them.
• Update your own estate plan if your family member had been named as a beneficiary, agent, trustee or guardian in it.
• Revisit your household budget and insurance needs now that your circumstances have changed.

Working through these steps eventually leads back to Caterpillar's own plans, since the pension, 401(k) and health benefits tied to Caterpillar are where many of these beneficiary and coverage questions get answered.

Which Caterpillar pension plan applies, and what do survivors receive?

At Caterpillar, which pension plan covered a family member shapes what a survivor is actually owed. Caterpillar sponsors two separate pension plans: the Retirement Income Plan, covering management, salaried and certain hourly employees, with accruals frozen for the non-sunset group on December 31, 2010 and the sunset group on December 31, 2019; and the Non-Contributory Pension Plan, for employees represented by collective bargaining units that ratified it, with accruals frozen for its remaining participants by December 31, 2015 (IAM and Patternmakers participants by December 31, 2012). Rights fully vest after three years in the Retirement Income Plan and five years in the Non-Contributory Pension Plan, and a Retirement Income Plan participant under the Pension Equity Plan formula can take the full benefit as a lump sum equal to Final Average Monthly Earnings times 12 times a service-based factor, or convert it to a lifetime annuity. Effective January 1, 2024, an unmarried Traditional Pension Plan participant who dies after filing a valid retirement application with a survivor annuity election, but before the annuity starting date, leaves that survivor benefit to the named beneficiary instead of forfeiting it. Confirming which Caterpillar plan covered the family member, and which payment option was on file, clarifies what the survivor is owed.