Each year, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) erroneously declares 5,000 Americans deceased, who are actually alive and well. The result quickly cascades across your finances, creating a paperwork mess that needs to be reversed. (The rate used to be 12,000 a year but system checks have reduced it to 5,000 a year).
So what happens when the government declares you dead? They automatically notify:
- Credit Bureaus
- Banks
- Credit Card Companies
- Health Insurance Providers
- Life Insurance Providers
- Medical Doctors
- Social Security Retirement and Disability
- Medicare
- Medicaid
Your first sign of trouble may be that your credit cards and ATM card no longer work. If SSA has erroneously classified you as deceased, you’ll need to go to an SSA office in person. You’ll need to bring your: birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, or other IDs to prove who you are. You need a written letter from SSA stating that you are NOT deceased. Make many copies of the letter because you’ll need to present it to all of the institutions listed above, or any other that is denying that you are alive. Going forward, you will likely need this letter for any new institutions that you may want to deal with, because they may also have the erroneous notice that you are deceased. So you need to be able to prove that you are not some scammer or identity thief.