0:00 hello and welcome to trust and Estates weekly I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific time and moving across the country that's uh 10:00 am Mountain 11:00 am no I'm sorry 10: amm Pacific Time 11:00 am Mountain Time noon in the central time and 1 pm eastern time there you go see I actually can figure out time zones and uh we talk about all things Rel related to Estate Planning and the administration of Estates and trusts as you can tell from the title so
0:37 today I'm gonna cover a a topic that may sound a little bit you know unimportant but but actually I think is is is quite so um and uh hopefully you will agree with me uh once I share with you some basic information so um the uh the show title I think I published on social media is like something like prevent identity theft of the of the decedent so the the problem I'm I'm I'm sure you've heard of the problem of identity theft
1:13 and and you may very well have been a victim I know I was when I joined the Navy um back in 2006 um I got to um my first Billet in okwa Japan in December of that year and within a week or two to found out that my identity had been stolen and it it took gosh almost two years to get that cleared up and the effort finally was was one if you will um when a a a friend of mine a Marine Corps Lieutenant
1:50 Colonel who was head of the um defense council's office in okanawa um took it upon himself to help me out because because I had reached kind of a a brick wall and trying to get people back in the States to help resolve the problem um the the various credit card uh companies lost somewhere between 50 and $100,000 um and you know and there you go so um you know the the statistics are a little bit tough to pin down so the
2:27 Federal Trade Commission estimates about 9 million Americans a year suffer from identity theft which would be a little bit less than you know 3% of the population um other estimates are as high as 22 23 24 million Americans a year which is approaching what 9% of the population now presumably children's identities are not be sto are not being stolen so uh you know it's a higher percentage of adults but um you know somewhere between perhaps four 5% and
3:02 maybe 10 11% of adults um identities are being stolen each year um it it it appears according to the data anyway now among deceased individuals um a company called U ID analytics um estimates that two and a half million deceased person's identities are stolen each year now I was not able to determine whether that's included in the overall identity theft statistics but still um if if we go with
3:37 the lower figure 9 million so that means you know almost one in four um identity thefts are of deceased people um and um even if we go with the higher number one in 10 identity thefts are are deceased people now um this becomes a little bit confusing because few than with the exception of during of during covid um annual deaths United States are are like around 2.2 2.3 million a year on average so you say
4:14 wait how could so many identity thefts be happening with so few deaths so over the last 30 years around 75 million Americans or so have died so if if you know again um our our deceased people from 40 50 years ago's identities being stolen probably not I I wouldn't I don't even know that necessarily was 30 years ago but but just using 30 years as as kind of a window so that means uh 3% of deceased people's identities are
4:49 being stolen each year now if we were to tighten that Windows to say 20 years it might be as much as 5% so you say well that doesn't seem like very High odds well you know if you've had your identity stolen and you know the hassle that you had to go through to get the problem fixed um it's it's not very comforting that only you know three four five% of of identities are stolen per year um that's actually high enough to to make it you know look one in 20 or 1 in30 um people are having their
5:26 identities stolen so if we put it that way that actually sounds you know more likely than than you know 3 to 5% so the reality is it's a huge problem and more to the point it can be a huge hassle to get it resolved so if if you are the administrator or the executive for an estate or you're the beneficiaries um although in the end the estate might not lose a lot of money um because there are limits to the losses
6:02 that can be suffered um through identity theft um in terms of credit cards for example um to have someone's identity stolen then to have property tied up or to have blowback because there the identity the the the um um the identity information was used falsely for someone to you know to get a job or get some kind of government benefits all all of that could cause um additional legal fees to the estate it could tie up the estate so that it can't close as quickly
6:38 and And Delay the the time that it takes for the beneficiaries to to get the you know various legacies and transfers of property Etc to which they're entitled and so um it's it's a it's a um important issue to deal with uh I I would also add that um you know another issue is just the Integrity of of the system so um for example um canceling the voter registration of a deceased person I'm
7:14 I'm sure I'm not sure but anyway you you may have heard about the old jokes about how many you know dead people vote in Chicago elections that's been a you know a saw that's been around for literally decades upon decades um but um you know know if if indeed we do care about the Integrity of our elections then when um a loved one dies or or if we have professional responsibilities like mine so when we're handling the Affairs of a deceased person we should uh cancel their voter registration in order to make sure that there isn't some ballot
7:50 floating around out there that that is uh you know improperly used so for all of these reasons it's important to pay attention to potential identity theft of a decedent I'm going to talk about uh three areas um to to look at that aren't so obvious so it's it's it's probably pretty obvious to you know get credit cards locked down um and and in some cases um credit card companies will you know even even just hearing that a a
8:27 card holder has died they will lock an account even without being formally notified um I'm not going to talk about that but I'm going to talk about some I think less obvious areas that can nonetheless uh create some significant areas for identity theft and those are passports uh voter registration and Social Security and Medicare okay now obviously for someone who um uh is not old enough um to be getting Medicare yet
9:03 um maybe that's not a problem however um anyone who's worked has a social security number and having that number can can um be very very useful in stealing a deceased person's identity even if they're not drawing benefits yet um a and and as well um you know for for someone who maybe is not eligible to vote so they they didn't register to vote okay so then you don't have to worry about that um not everybody has a passport either but a lot of people do and and so uh it's it's it's an area
9:38 that you know we do want to attend to and and and make sure that uh it it's been handled okay so I'm going to go ahead and and uh share my screen here and take a look at a couple of these okay here we go so let's start out with passport okay so um if you if you were to Google um um cancel passport of deceased person or something like that you're going to come up with this page by the way I'm going to put all of these URLs in the show notes so you don't have to do the Googling you'll you'll have
10:14 them there um but in in this in the passport section under report my passport lost or stolen so you say well okay but someone who's died their passport isn't necessarily lost or stolen no you may have the passport so here here here's a section how do I cancel the passport of a deceased relative okay and actually the process is very simple so assuming you have the passport itself okay so you you take the passport a certified copy of the death certificate okay that's an original
10:50 certified copy okay and a letter requesting the cancellation and and return or destruction of the passport okay and and and you know you write something very s simple you know dear Consular lost and soul and passport unit or dear class um enclos is the passport for you know the deceased please um cancel the passport and you know either return it to me um at at the at this address or destroy the passport um uh
11:25 signed you know whoever you are now it says here um um deceased relative but you know as a professional fiduciary I've used this for um people who's a States I've been administrating and and it it's it's just fine the the the state department doesn't care whether it's a relative or not what they care about is getting these um uh these documents now um when I submit as a a um as an administrator or an executive I do put a copy of my
12:01 letters of administration in the package just so if there ever were a question do I have authority to be doing this they can see the court has granted me Authority so if you're acting as an executive or administrator personal representative whatever title you're going under um I I would recommend including a copy of the Court Document it's a matter of public record anyway so it's not like you're sharing something that's private and that way there's there's no question that you have the authority and you can see here's the address you sent it to in Sterling Virginia okay it takes several weeks for
12:36 them to process it and then lo and behold um several weeks later um if I always ask for the passport back that way I know it's been handled um and and you know there's been no slip ups and the passport is mailed back to you along with the copy or of the along with the certified death certificate so you're not you know you have to pay for each death certificate that you get so they'll return it to you so you can use it again if you need it um and and you'll get it in a in a manila envelope and and there and it'll be stamped uh uh
13:13 canceled I think is what they stamp on it whatever whatever the thing is and now you know that it's been done um and even if it were subsequently to get stolen or something like that um it's on the record with the state department that it's been cancelled so if somebody tries to use it and it's scanned in the system that person is going to be nabbed for using a passport illegally um and as well um you know it it has the the canceled in it and so it's going to be difficult if not impossible to use in any event so it's it's a very simple
13:48 process now anytime I do something like this I always send it uh certified mail that way I can track it I I don't ask for a return receipt doesn't really matter um as long as I can track it um and and and which is what the certified mail allows you to do it costs a little over five dollar I think to send it certified mail but again it's it's worth it to be able to make sure that you know it's been covered and and you know that the the the issue has been handled okay so passport is is the uh is is the first
14:26 um issue to deal with so the next one is voter registration and again um in this case um so let's see go here yeah okay so I just I just Googled um cancel voter registration for deceased person okay now I'm in Los Angeles so in in this case the the Los Angeles County Clerk is responsible for voter registration um I I I'll I will put LA county in in the um
15:03 show notes but obviously many of you are in different um jurisdictions so it is going to vary from County to county or in Louisiana Parish to Parish okay but but the again the process is pretty simple so um you're going to fill out this form request cancellation of a deceased voter application okay and you put the voter information here you put the requesters name here relationship okay now again you know spouse parent child they're assuming it's a relative um but again I've done
15:38 this as a um as an administrator you know as a professional fiduciary um and and again when I submitted it I submitted it with a copy of my letters of administration so that there's no question that I have the authority to do this okay and now here in LA county you see you can return it by mail you can return it by fax you can return it by email which is really easy and all I did um I did this a few months ago um on on a on an estate I just scan the documents um in includ you know this
16:14 form signed by me um and uh and and well actually you know filled out this form in uh in uh PDF these days you know you can fill out a PDF um it's it's it's easier sometimes than than um uh you know printing it out and filling it out and scanning and all that you can sign the PDF okay and I included a copy of the um of my letters of administration you can go real simple online there's their uh Adobe you can go on adobe's
16:51 website and you can combine PDFs okay into one overall PDF so everything's together nothing gets separated just attach it to an email um and and email it to you know in this case voter info RR cc. laac county.gov okay rrcc register recorder County Clerk okay and and you're you know you're not going to get any confirmation at least I never have on cancelling of a voter's registration um however once it's once it's submitted hopefully you know they are going to follow through and um you
17:28 know depend ing on um uh you know how much how long you have um uh sort of control of their mailing address or their residential address you'll see if you know over the the next you know year or so um voter information you know a sample ball or whatever comes in and so you know you should be able to tell if in fact um it was it was taken care of so again not difficult to do not a lot of time to do well worth taking
18:04 though um because U you know the the the time and cost of dealing with identity theft is is much much greater than any time you would spend on um on this okay so the third one I'm going to talk about is social security Medicare and where is social secur Medicare here it is okay so report a death so Med this is this is medicare.gov again I will um put
18:40 this link in in the show notes because um this will be the same throughout the country um so how do you report a death to Medicare which also then reports it to Social Security well you're actually reporting it to Social Security as it turns it's funny you're on the medicare.gov site okay but um you're actually reporting it to Social Security now you need to have the person the decedent's social security number if if you have a copy of their death certificate you will have um a copy of their social security number because that is reported on a death
19:17 certificate okay now typically the funeral home will report the person's death to Social Security okay so if you give this and and typically the funer funeral home is going to ask for a copy of the death certificate so they're going to have the person's social security number um you can always double check with them and make sure they're going to do it I found that they typically do okay now if you're concerned I I had a situation where um I didn't I was not involved with the funeral or making the funeral arrangements or anything like that um I
19:52 got involved with it after all that had happened um I called the um Funeral Home um to check if as a matter of policy um they reported um the death to you know a decedent to Social Security they they said they did but they couldn't confirm on this for this particular decedent whether they had so I just made I just um called Social Security myself um and I just I reported the death a second time and I noted to them that I noted to the person I spoke to that I I wasn't
20:29 sure if the death had been reported previously wanted to make sure that it was so that there wasn't any problem with um the death being um you know with the social security number not being marked as as you know for a deceased person um so this the person I spoke to was was happy to take the information um but they would not confirm if the death had been reported previously so the Social Security people are very very very careful about giving out information um it can be frankly very frustrating dealing with them sometimes
21:05 um but but nonetheless again it's a pretty simple thing to do and and um something that absolutely if you're not sure that the funeral home has reported the person as deceased to Social Security you absolutely should take the time to do it again it it never hurts to have it reported a second time but it can save an awful lot of grief um down the road so now you know and there's one other thing that you want to do and I'm gonna I'm going to do a quick search for it here um
21:50 because okay and that is the person's driver's license okay driver's license or or state ID card if they don't drive any longer they may be you know so so elderly um that that they um don't have driving privileges any longer but they may still have a state ID card um usually it's the Department of Motor Vehicles that issues those cards um in addition to Driver's Licenses so what do you do about that so so again just um and this is this is obviously like voter
22:25 registration is is going to be well voter Reg ation is county by county driver's license is typically a state issued um document so step by step so what do you do um in terms of um having a driver's license um cancelled so I just sorry I cancel driver's license of deceased person um in this place sorry in this case that didn't click through let's let's find the DMV that's transfer yeah yeah so the DM yeah this is what I found
23:01 last time I think is um uh the it was very hard to find um information on if not impossible on oh that's that's here we go um on the DMV's website um you know what you know what you do um but you know are you an exec okay so snug so this is someone selling a service um I'm trying to remember where on the DMV's website [Music]
23:36 um where on the DM DMV's website I found it so let's go to um dmv.ca.gov okay and here you go search here um deceased driver let's see what we get okay search result driver um and you would think it would pop right up to the top but it doesn't so you're probably going to have to
24:11 search around um on the web on on the DMV's website but um as there'll be a form as there always is you fill out the form um you submit it now in my case uh the case I did most recently anyway um the person 's driver's license had been lost and so um I reported it as as such okay you're interested in handling the matters of a deceased person there you go so service advice yes okay decision driver's license and identity okay here you go handling the matters of
24:46 a deceased person okay here you go um all right here's okay you you you need to address the following here's a whole list of things to do okay and in the end um as I recall I think I just called the DMV and asked them what to do and they told me what form it was okay here you go well this is this is for a disabled person's license plate you those need to be returned um you know etc etc so on you know the most common form of ID it is interesting it is the most difficult
25:23 to figure out how to cancel it um it took me more time dealing with the DMV than all the other three put together typically um because they it it's it's so you know obtuse that you would think they would make it real obvious but but they don't but those are those are the four places or the four areas where um I I recommend that you spend them the your time in preventing the theft of a decedent's identity um and again um
25:58 reiterate passport voter registration um Social Security Medicare and driver's license um you know credit cards you do want to cancel credit cards of course um but there are limits on um how much um it could cost you if a if a credit card is used after someone dies um and you know if you have a death certificate and someone charged something on the account after the person was deceased um in in general um it's unlikely that that the
26:34 estate is going to be held liable for that um and there are statutory limits um to what uh you know to what the losses are when an unauthorized charge is made so um I again I'll put um links in the show notes so that you can access them um as easily as possible but do take a few minutes to attend you you should be able ble to do um all of these well you should be able to do the first three in about you know 15 20 minutes um maybe a little bit more if it includes you know because it'll include a trip to the post office to mail um the
27:10 passport um and then you know depending on how how um uh efficient your DMV is I know the Alabama DMV is very efficient um you know you can go there you don't wait in line very long the clerks are are not only very knowledgeable but also um they are very very helpful okay in contradistinction to here in California where um there we just don't have the same level of customer service among the people at the DMV at least the ones I've dealt with um I you know interestingly
27:45 enough there here in California we have um uh facilitation uh servicers who take care of DMV matters um but um the one that I use on a regular basis um does not handle um processing the the the paperwork for the death of a of a seeden driver's license so it's it's um you you might think they would but but they don't I guess um it doesn't come up often enough unlike you know registering cars and renewing driver's licenses and those things um to make it worth their
28:21 their trouble you can see it must be a hassle otherwise you know they would make money off of doing it so um so you know that'll vary um You probably you well you know better than me the DMV in your home state and so you'll know what you're up against but you know it may take you 30 minutes may take you an hour may take you a couple of hours but even so um you know take the time to do it and and protect the estate from the potential um hassle the time the energy that it would take to deal with uh you know the the decedent identity being stolen so that's the for today thanks
28:59 very much for for joining me thanks very much for viewing and uh on tomorrow then at 10: amm Pacific time is my show business lessons from the military and we will be talking about Traditions that build morale um and uh this is something that I think the the military is particularly good at we'll tell a couple of stories that hopefully will IM news you as well so I invite you to tune in then and then on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m.
29:35 Pacific time is my show people making money and we will be talking about how to uncover pre valuable skills that you didn't realize you have that can enhance your professional prospects so so join us for that as well and by the way if you are not a subscriber please do consider uh subscribing to our Channel you just click on the Subscribe button there below on YouTube and that way you'll get notified every time a show goes live and and and you won't miss any
30:11 of the um upcoming episodes of the way a while shows so thanks again for joining me wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off Marie you are my bell all the best folks I should be saying by the way courage at all times any of you who have gotten an email from me know that that's that's that's that's how I need to be signing off from now on so courage at all times