How to Inform Credit Card Companies of the Death of a Spouse Who Was the Major Income Earner

Dealing with the emotional crisis of a spouse's death is difficult enough, especially if your spouse was the breadwinner for the family. Paying for the funeral, burial and other costs can be a financial hardship, even if your spouse made prior financial arrangements to offset the costs before death. Unfortunately, your spouse's debts must still be paid with any remaining money left over from the estate, which includes credit card debt. Informing the credit card company of an account holder's death could reduce the number of calls received during your time of grief and allow you to make settlement arrangements.

Instructions

1

Take care of important business first, such as funeral and burial arrangements and notification of friends, family, employers and the Social Security office, if your spouse was receiving Social Security benefits.

2

Assess your spouse's estate. This may require the assistance of an estate lawyer and an accountant, especially if your spouse handled the finances without your help. An accountant can help you figure out your spouse's assets and debts, so you can set up an actionable plan to repay as much of the debt as possible with the remaining estate assets after the funeral.

3

Write a formal letter to all credit card companies your spouse held a balance with, informing them that your spouse is deceased.

4

Notify the card companies in your letter that you are in the process of settling your spouse's estate and that your spouse was the major income earner in the household, if that was the case. Do not include details about your spouse's assets until you have an accurate picture of the estate, as this could prompt the companies to continue making demanding calls about debt settlement.

5

Assure the credit card companies that you will contact them with more details to make settlement arrangements once you have an accurate picture of the estate and your spouse's overall debt.

6

Inform the card companies immediately of the estate settlement once the assessment is finished. If there are no remaining assets to settle credit card debt once important financial obligations the deceased had are met, the debt becomes insolvent, and the credit card company will have to write off the debt. The credit card company cannot request that you take over the debt for your spouse unless you were a joint account holder on the credit card before your spouse's death.