Handling Probate Admin Tasks: Benefits of Working With an Estate Close-Out Specialist
Oct 12, 2023Episode 17
Sherri Lund & Matt Van Drimmelen
Is a probate close-out concierge service worth it? What will it handle and how much does it cost? Join us in Episode 17 as Matt Van Drimmelen, founder at Full Circle Aftercare, describes why he created his done-for-you probate service to handle administrative phone calls the closing of decedents’ accounts.
Nuggets in this Episode: -Who needs to be notified when someone dies? -What happens to the final Social Security check when you die? -How to fix estate identity theft and incorrect death certificate mistakes? -Why over 1500 families are using Full Circle Aftercare each month
Timestamps 0:00 Introducing Matt Van Drimmelen with Full Circle Aftercare 2:41 What does a probate admin concierge service do? 5:41 Finding and closing accounts for the deceased 7:13 An incredibly small favor for major grief relief 12:56 What happens to a business bank account when someone dies? 14:46 What to do and who to notify when someone dies 21:45 Can you handle the probate admin checklist remotely? 23:59 Estate and deceased person identity theft 28:04 Getting the last social security check after death 30:14 Probate Stories: Social Security has the wrong death certificate! 33:13 How Full Circle Aftercare fills Estate Specialist jobs
ABOUT MATT: Matt Van Matt Van Drimmelen was born and raised on the foothills of the majestic mountains of Northern Utah. He married his high school sweetheart, Marquessa and they have 6 children ages 4 to 15. Matt served a 2-year mission for his church in Bolivia and speaks fluent Spanish. Matt loves to build things and solve problems so he studied Civil engineering. After years of working on commuter rail projects and right of way, Matt’s friend approached him about a problem in the funeral industry. Families were struggling with the logistics of closing estate issues after the loss of a loved one. In 2013, he founded Full-Circle Aftercare to help families with those difficult tasks. Now they have Hospice and Funeral Home clients in 37 states and serve around 1,700 families a month.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
Is a probate close-out concierge service worth it? What will it handle and how much does it cost? Join us in Episode 17 as Matt Van Drimmelen, founder at Full Circle Aftercare, describes why he created his done-for-you probate service to handle administrative phone calls the closing of decedents’ accounts.
Nuggets in this Episode: -Who needs to be notified when someone dies? -What happens to the final Social Security check when you die? -How to fix estate identity theft and incorrect death certificate mistakes? -Why over 1500 families are using Full Circle Aftercare each month
Timestamps 0:00 Introducing Matt Van Drimmelen with Full Circle Aftercare 2:41 What does a probate admin concierge service do? 5:41 Finding and closing accounts for the deceased 7:13 An incredibly small favor for major grief relief 12:56 What happens to a business bank account when someone dies? 14:46 What to do and who to notify when someone dies 21:45 Can you handle the probate admin checklist remotely? 23:59 Estate and deceased person identity theft 28:04 Getting the last social security check after death 30:14 Probate Stories: Social Security has the wrong death certificate! 33:13 How Full Circle Aftercare fills Estate Specialist jobs
ABOUT MATT: Matt Van Matt Van Drimmelen was born and raised on the foothills of the majestic mountains of Northern Utah. He married his high school sweetheart, Marquessa and they have 6 children ages 4 to 15. Matt served a 2-year mission for his church in Bolivia and speaks fluent Spanish. Matt loves to build things and solve problems so he studied Civil engineering. After years of working on commuter rail projects and right of way, Matt’s friend approached him about a problem in the funeral industry. Families were struggling with the logistics of closing estate issues after the loss of a loved one. In 2013, he founded Full-Circle Aftercare to help families with those difficult tasks. Now they have Hospice and Funeral Home clients in 37 states and serve around 1,700 families a month.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
Hi there. My name is Sherri Lund. This is the Probate Podcast. I'm so glad that you're here! Today, my guest is Matt Van Drimmelen and he's with Full Circle Aftercare. I can't wait for you to hear about what he does and how he can help people really across the nation. He's doing great work across the nation. Let me tell you a little bit about him. But before I do, I wanna remind you to get your favorite drink and to get a pen and paper because we're gonna be talking about some things that you're gonna wanna remember and we'll get started. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. Happy to be here. Yeah. So Matt Van Drimmelen was born and raised in the foothills of the Majestic Mountains of Northern Utah. Beautiful area. Been there several times. He married his high school sweetheart, Marquessa. And they have six children, ages four to 15. Matt and his family love the outdoors. They like to ski camp, rock climbing, and kayak. They're focused on teaching responsibility and hard work to their children, and they're in charge of tending the garden and helping raise the backyard bunnies and chickens. Matt served a two year mission trip with his church in Bolivia, and he speaks fluent Spanish. He loves to build things and solve problems, so he studied civil engineering. After years of working on commuter rail projects and right of way, Matt's friend approached him about a problem in the funeral industry. Families were struggling with the logistics of closing estates after the loss of loved ones. In 2013, he founded Full Circle Aftercare to help families with those difficult tasks. Now they have hospice and funeral home clients in 37 states, and they serve 1700 families a month. That number's growing. So Matt, again, thank you so much for coming. was excited when I heard about the service that you offer. I think it's highly, highly needed and seldom talked about. And so you guys really stepped up and provide a great service in a niche that's necessary, I think. Thank you. It's honestly just wonderful work to be able to help families, because it's a confusing time. It's really not complicated what we deal with, but it's complicated when you have that emotional tie of losing a loved one and not knowing what those next steps are can be difficult. We don't do these things every day, so it's nice to have someone step in and hold your hand through that process. I was a naturopath and part of my work was in the emotional health and how it translates to physical health and grief has so many facets to it. And one of them is we just don't think, we cannot think well when we're overcome with grief, it's not predictable. It's not like we can say, okay, from four to six in the afternoon, I'm gonna let myself grieve. It comes on us in the strangest of times and then it's unpredictable, it's overwhelming. And it's exhausting. So what we could have done before we lost our loved
one:
we could have knocked it out in an afternoon, maybe. Now it takes us weeks and months just to have a cohesive thought. It's hard to even put words together sometimes when we're in grief. And even though what you do is not complicated, I don't wanna diminish the importance of what you're doing, because you're an objective person to the family. And I know that you don't physically do all of the work for all of your customers, but your team comes in and is able to take the reins for the family. So describe what Full Circle is and what you do. Absolutely. So when someone passes away, Everything that person's life touched needs to be addressed by the family members. We think oftentimes of the funeral. And we think of the personal items. Where do we take dad's guns and the books and what do we do with his car? But we don't think about all the other things that our lives touch. Everything from government benefits like social security to pensions, 401Ks, credit cards, utilities memberships, Netflix and AARP memberships and newspaper subscriptions. And just going through all that can be really complicated. I keep this under my desk. I won't show you the logo, but a big funeral home conglomerate sells this big albatross with the two and a half inch binder inside. And this is a pretty comprehensive list of everything that family would have to know to get through those next steps. And because it's so frustrating and so difficult for the family, this is overwhelming. Nobody wants to go through that two and a half inch binder. And so what we determined is families need some handholding. They need a real concierge to walk 'em through this. And so that's what we are, we're just a concierge service where we white label under services like funeral homes and hosts and law firms. And even some real estate agents across the country, and what we do is they pay for our service or they sell our service to their families. We go in and we help the family figure out what those next steps are. What accounts did their loved one have and what needs to be closed down? And then we will systematically go through each of the phone calls to make the notifications and help them start that process. We're not attorneys. We're not trying to be, we're not financial planners. We're not trying to be those either. We're really just helping with that notification process and getting organized and what those next steps are, and then helping the family find other professionals that would help 'em if they need such as an attorney or a tax advisor moving forward. So that's it in a nutshell. It's really just handholding, understanding what the family needs to do, helping them make the notifications and phone calls fill out whatever paperwork we can, and taking a process on average takes a family with less than $10,000 of assets 14 months to make all those notifications. Wow. On average, we're done in less than a week. We make the calls for them, and oftentimes they have to make one or none phone calls. Wow...Have it happen. That's amazing. I didn't realize it took that long and that you guys can do it so quickly. We can. Well, And you take the emotional side out of it.....Yes. Also, take the fact that, hey, if I'm gonna call social security, I'm gonna call the general number. I'm gonna sit on hold for 50 minutes on my own, but because we do such high volume, we can call social security and get in, on average in less than seven minutes. Wow. Or same thing, you're gonna call a utility company and press one, press seven, press four. Did I press the right number and then stay on hold for an hour? We have built connections with most of those companies so we can get right in and we know how to make the notification. There's the little video and we can all relate to it, but when you're on hold and the computer is asking you, what do you want? And you start screaming at the phone because you've told it already, I wanna speak to a representative. You know? Representative. Yeah, exactly. Yes. The person down the street can hear you talking to the phone, screaming at the phone. Yes. So you don't have to do that because you guys skip ahead and you have all those numbers handy.. and, Has there been something for you that has touched, that has connected with you, like the sense of fulfillment of the logistical stuff that you're doing. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, as an engineering background for me, it's all mathematics, it's linear course, just that you said, right? And hey, how can I take a complicated process and make it simple, easy, and user friendly? What I didn't calculate was the emotional side of it. And I remember I was probably just a year into it. We were trying to struggle and figure out the company and I was really trying to get things more effective in our usage. And I was working with the hospice out of Wyoming. And this gentleman I helped, his name was Earl. He had lost a son who's 22 years old and his son had been disabled his whole life. So it wasn't completely unexpected. He was on hospice. They knew he would die young and Earl, I grew up watching like John Wayne and these spaghetti westerns and Earl sounded just like John Wayne. He kind of had that drawl sounded like he could chew up nails and spit 'em out, and I remember going through the checklist and of all the things we could normally help with, there were just one or two items we needed to do for his son. I dealt with some social security benefits. I dealt with canceling a credit card, setting up some fraud protection, and that was about it. And I'm sitting there on the phone and I'm like, Earl, that's it. I don't think there's anything else we need to do for your son. And it's just silence. I'm like, Earl, are you there? Did I lose you? And suddenly he comes back, choked up. Now here's Mr. True Grit, right? And he's choked up and he goes, Matt, the thing I have dreaded most after my son died was calling these strangers and having to save my sweet son's name and telling them that he passed away and the fact that you did all of that for me means everything to me, and all of a sudden it just touched me in a way that I was like, this is more than helping them with logistics. This is holding someone's hand who just lost someone who's part of their life and they love them. And now they don't have to sit on hold. They don't have to talk to a stranger and be like, my son died, or My mom died, or my wife died. Instead, we can do that for them and we can take that weight off their shoulders and give them a little peace of mind. And at that moment, my passion for this completely changed. And it wasn't so much about the logistics. That's a still big part of it. It was about helping people and being there for them at a difficult moment of their life. Sure. You saw value that was intrinsic at that point. I have a friend who is a widow. I think her husband passed away 4 years ago. And she said one time that she was trying really hard to keep his memory alive and to keep things around, to keep him with her, even though he was gone, but she had to make those phone calls. She didn't know about your service, and so she said, Sherri, while I am trying to keep his memory alive, I'm also having to call people and tell them to erase his name from our account or from that statement or whatever. And just the conflict of that was like, how do you bridge that? How do you rectify that? And I didn't know as a friend, I was number one honored that she shared that with -nobody else had explain that to me. But number two, I felt helpless to know what to say back to her. And they're so vulnerable and so fragile that I don't want to say the wrong thing. So sometimes I say nothing, and that's not always good either. So the fact that you guys just take that away and let them have their peace and heal as they need to, you take that on so they don't have to, I guess is what I'm trying to say. We notice a transition as we're helping families because at the beginning we get a lot of families who are almost stoic about the whole situation, and others who are maybe a little angry. I'm a little frustrated about what we're going through and I remember we had our trainer, she was helping train a new employee and I peeked my head at the beginning and this new employee looked at me with eyes this big and I could hear this guy and he was just angry at the world and kind of cussing everyone out. And I talked to a therapist who had gone through our service and he goes, there's something about that. There's this weight. And as these things come off, it lifts the weight, but then all these other emotions bubble up. Like you said, like they're being erased and it's difficult, but also needs to happen. So oftentimes he'll get very emotional. So he was this big jerk and swearing at everyone and everything, and then all of a sudden he just stops and he starts crying. After they'd gotten through a big item that he needed to get off his plate. And he goes, oh, I feel so relieved, and thank you so much for helping me. I'm sorry I've been angry. I just don't know how to deal with this loss. And so this new employee came walking outta there and like,"this is the best work!" And I thought she was gonna quit on her first day because she was so taken aback by this guy. But she's yeah, this is important. And you're right. It's difficult to get through. That's why it's so nice to have someone there who's caring, who can hold your hand through that process so you don't feel like you're doing it by yourself. And what I like about what you do is it's not anything that I do, but what we do is parallel. So you offer concierge services for admin type of stuff, and I do the boots on the ground dealing with the property and the personal belongings and whatnot, and..So, so necessary! Yes, but also compatible and very necessary. Getting information from people that's the hardest part because once we can get the information, it's the decisions that they have to make. I can run with that for a little bit and then if we need to make adjustments, I can come back and make adjustments. But that first initial piece is the hardest. What is your process and when should somebody call you? How soon? This has been something that's been actually a big learning curve for us. We thought that the ideal time to call us was about the six week to two month mark. And so we would have our funeral homes that were referring families over to us. Wait a couple months and then send them to us. And we started getting a lot of complaints from families and the biggest complaint was that we'd taken so long to reach out to 'em because there are those who feel like they need to do something. And I think a perfect example of this is my wife is a ballet teacher. So she's a stay-at-home mom, but she likes to teach ballet. The owner of the ballet studio, her husband passed away about a year ago. And so Marquessa calls me and she's Hey, will you call Klidi and just give her our service to help her with the passing of her husband? I said, absolutely. So I call Klidi and I'm like, Klidi, I don't know if you know what I do, but we help close out the kind of the admin things of an estate, and I'd love to offer you our service for free. Anything I can do to help. And she's oh, I would love that. I can't talk right now because I'm at the bank. So let me call you back this afternoon. And I was like, Klidi you're at the bank. Turn around and walk out the door. And she's " like, no, no, no. I'm next in line" Klidi just turn around and walk out the door. I need to talk to you right now. And she's oh my goodness. So she goes out, she goes "what?" And I was like, "were you going to tell them that Spencer just passed away?" And she's " yeah." And I was like, " you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna freeze your bank account. Is that the same bank that you do your run your business out of?""Yes.""Then your business banking will also be frozen and you won't be able to pay your rent for the studio. You won't be able to collect checks, you won't be able to do anything until you get through that next process." And she was taken aback oh, I had no idea. And so what we find is the funeral homes have now completely reversed course, and they ask us to reach out to the family within 72 hours after death. Wow. Not because we typically start the process that soon. But just so we can be there as a resource saying, Hey, we're here. If you have any questions before you do anything, talk to us. Because there's an order. We have to do certain things in an order or it's gonna create a little bit of a mess. And so yeah, the sooner the better. After someone has passed away. We can help them. And then oftentimes we'll talk through a few of their initial questions and we'll actually do our service. We usually start at about two to three weeks after death, depending on what the family situation is. And what is that process like When they call you? Do they need to have statements on hand? Do they need to have bank accounts and all do you handle that the first conversation, or? Typically not. So typically the first conversation we're really asking questions and figuring out what there is. And, most families don't know. Even spouses don't know. It seems like one spouse dealt with all the finances and all the paperwork, and one spouse didn't, and when that one dies, the other one's I have no idea. I don't know. Do we have retirement accounts? Maybe. And oftentimes It's just an asking those questions to start giving direction of what we need to do, and then we're going to help them search for those items. So we might be pulling credit reports to see what accounts are open. We might have them pull out a bank statement and just look at, hey, what money's coming into the bank, what money's going out and just walking them through a couple tips and tricks to help them figure out what there is to do. And then obviously helping complete that process. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Can you describe the types of clients that you get? Are they mostly surviving spouses? Yeah, I mean the surviving spouses, there's definitely the most to do with the surviving spouse most accounts don't need to be closed, but need to be transferred to one spouse's name. Sometimes they don't wanna do that, so it's just a little bit more information. As well as like government benefits, there's a lot to do there. I don't know if you know this, but social security was audited a few years ago. It was a sample audit, so it wasn't a full audit, but they looked at widows and widowers who should have received their spousal benefit, and they found that only 18% were receiving their full spousal. Wow. Wow. But 82% were underpaid. And those types of situations, obviously there's a lot for us to do to make sure that all their benefits come through and those things are taken care of. And then with an adult child we're losing a parent. That's gonna vary on our work. Sometimes there's very little for us to do because mom's been in a retirement home for the last 30 years. She hasn't owned a checkbook, let alone a credit card, let alone energy bills, right? And so there's just not that many people to contact, there's no surviving benefits because there's no surviving spouse. All the way down to, we've had situations where, We had a young widow that I helped.. Her husband was serving in Afghanistan, got hurt, got really sick and ended up coming home. So she's raising three kids by herself and her husband comes back sick. She quits her job to take care of him, and he passed away about six months later. Because she was young, she just was a little bit naive to how things worked. And wouldn't you believe it? Her landlord comes over to her and says, " Hey, I heard that your husband died and if that means you can't pay rent, then you might as well move out now so I don't have to evict you." So she's thinking, she's gonna be moved out, she's gonna be homeless. She has these three kids, she has no income source. And I remember starting that phone call and she was just so panicked what is going to happen to me? And after that one was a little bit longer 'cause there was a lot of things to do with that kind of situation. And after about two and a half hours we had to have everything worked out. We got her benefits all set up and I remember she was gonna have $1,700 a month coming in. We found like a $5,000 life insurance policy. We found some rental assistance. We found all sorts of things for her. And she goes, Matt, I can do this. And like hearing that confidence in her with, at the beginning, just that transition over a few hours was really beneficial. So it really depends on the family, even those families where there's not much to do. Sometimes having the peace of mind of going through a checklist with someone, figuring it out and being like, there's nothing else you have to do for your mom or your dad. Sometimes they give us the greatest reviews because they were just so stressed about it. They didn't know you don't know what you don't know and.. Right. And you guys are another set of eyes and you do know what to look for. So that the assurance that would come from having someone like y'all look at their accounts would just be that stamp of approval that they need. You can just check that off. They don't have to worry about it. I've done a lot of situations where I'll go to like assisted living facilities, and I'll talk about our service and I always ask the question, who here dealt with this? Raise your hand. What was your experience like? And they're always like, oh, I loved it. It was the best experience....no, they're always like, it was awful. I had no idea what to do. And then I always ask a question, how long did it take you? And guess what the number one answer is? I don't know. I'm not sure if we ever finished. And they're carrying this grief and they're also carrying this worry and this anxiety. Yep. Is there something I missed? Did I do something wrong? Did I miss out on something? For the rest of their lives. And just having someone go through like, that's it. You don't need to worry about it. That is really helpful. I would have to say the same thing with settling the estate. Yeah. From the property level. There's one family that I know of it's the most extreme that I've heard of, but they've kept the house vacant, but they keep maintaining the lawn for 10 years. They keep the utilities on because they can't stand the thought of selling the property. So they're still liable for it. They're still maintaining the taxes, but no one is living there because they've made it into a monument. But even when people have moved on, say the surviving spouse, they don't always transfer the title. So when the second person passes away, then the adult child finds that probate was never really tidied up and finished. And yeah, it can just go on indefinitely and then it becomes a bigger problem down the road. It does, it makes... it's such a gift to your children to, when you have the first spouse pass away, to make sure that everything gets transitioned correctly so that they don't have this big, huge mess to deal with if you can take care of it. That is such a gift. Yeah. And it's so nice when that has been done correctly. Yeah. Yes. I would underline that from my personal experience when my mom passed away, dad passed away 18 months later, of course I grieve my dad, but I also grieved the loss of both of my parents now. And so it was like some of mom all over again. It was different with dad and it, was compounded. But to have that taken off of our plate would've been really nice to say the least. So you're in 37 states? Yes. I won't make you name them all. Just added Canada too. So we're headed up. Oh, yay. Good job. Thank you. That's awesome Matt. So obviously. Maybe I shouldn't say obviously. Do you have people in every state that go and talk to people in person? Great question. No, we when we first started out, everything was in person. And what we found was we were better tag teaming with people like you, right? People like you can go in and talk to 'em about personal property and about selling the house and those types of things. For the admin thing, sometimes it just stressed the family out to have us come and they need to clean the house, they need to do those things. So we started doing it virtually just over the phone and through Zoom calls and found that families much preferred that. And, being able to do that allowed us to keep our costs low. So we really reduced the cost of our service, which allowed us to help more families. So we have our main call center here in Utah. We have remote employees all over the place. But this is the principal area and then we have experts based upon whatever area we're in. So in our Texas market, we have state specialists who have been trained for Texas laws, understand that some of them are living in Texas and some just study Texas laws and step in there. But they're all gonna be remote even if they do live locally, just because it's easier for the family. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Is there did people ever misunderstand what you do? Oh, yeah. I think sometimes people think that in fact our original name was final assistance. And for some reason people heard financial assistance. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think a lot of times people think that we are trying to help them find money or invest money or things like that, which we don't do any of that. And sometimes people think, want us to do things that are really better suited. We're an attorney or a real estate agent. We just can't get into those areas. They're not what we are. But if they're explained properly, I think most families understand what our scope is and how we fit into that will, which cog we are in that will of those next steps. Yeah. And, with identity theft and all of that can you talk a little bit about that and how, what you do. Plays into that. Absolutely. So identity theft is a huge problem, I think. Last statistic I saw was about 2.5 million deceased individuals get their identity stolen every year, 2.5 million, which is a huge number. And there's nothing worse for that family to have to lose their loved one and then have their loved ones affairs muddied by an identity theft. And We do several layers of that. The very best thing is to turn off all the credit bureaus because most lending and a lot of fraud financially go through the credit bureaus. So that's a process. The first thing we'll do is we'll set up fraud protection on the deceased name and every person in the family. It's not always just targeted. The deceased, oftentimes it's targeted as thriving spouse. Oh, interesting. Adult children. So we'll do fraud protection for them. Then we go in and help the family permanently close out all the credit bureaus so that social security number and name can't be used. We do a deceased registry. Which is a government registry that helps them stop other like insurance policies and things like that being issued in that person's name. We like I said, the credit monitoring, we also put all their phones on, do not solicit. One thing, we're able to stop about 95% of the junk mail that comes in that deceased name because we'll update the national drug Marketers Association, and they want their list updated anyways. And that's where most of junk mail comes. But that also protects the family because oftentimes people take that junk mail pre credit card offer or something, they'll fill it out, apply for it, and that's how the fraud occurs. And Having us check all those accounts, plus making the proper notifications to government benefits and things like that. Which is also a big area of fraud. Should take care of it. And then we want to remove their name from as many sources as possible. So we're taking their name off lists, we're taking them off memberships, off of subscriptions, off of all those different things, which then further helps protect that family from fraud. Yeah. So you're taking that burden from them, you're taking this weight away of the potential for identity theft. Is there something else that you help families avoid? Yeah, I think one of the things we're really trying to help the families avoid are more problems down the road or making good decisions at this point, right? We're gonna do a lot of education on things that could happen next, right? So we're gonna educate the families. What is probate and what does that mean? What is a will? What is a trust? When would one get triggered or when would you need a trust? When do you need a will? What's the legal side of it? The financial side, payable upon death. There's a lot of education saying this is what it was now that it's just one. So for example, two spouses marry, they own a home together. The one spouse passes away: In most states, that doesn't trigger probate. The surviving spouse is able to sell. They'll just need to bring a death certificate if they sell that home. But if they do nothing, when they pass away, it will trigger probate for their children. So helping them understand"Your situation's now changed. So moving forward, here's the things we need to put in place to protect your estate and protect your children." Now we're not gonna do that, right? So you need to talk to an attorney, or we can give you a discount code through an online form if you just need a will or something like that. We're gonna help them facilitate those next steps but yeah, a lot of it is that education on the state matters that people don't understand getting their name off, things, changing, the name, funding the trust, that type of thing. Yeah, that's a really good point.'cause that's one more step that's moving them from this situation of loss and cleaning that up to making the next step of their life neater, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Giving them more peace of mind. That's what you really wanna do. Yeah. What's a common question that people ask you when you get them on the phone? I think the most common thing we deal with is the last payment of social Security. And it is so misunderstood and so many families miss out on that payment. So, Social Security pays a month in arrears. So the check they receive in August is actually July's payment, right? Okay. The check they'll receive in recept September is actually August payment, and people don't really understand that. So oftentimes what they'll see is, you know, my dad died September 1st. Social Security deposited a check, and then they pulled it back out. And I assume that's because he died in September. He wasn't getting this month check. In reality, he does get that last check because it's August payment and he lived the entire month of August. Different story if he died like August 28th. But the fact that he lived till September 1st, he does get that last payment. They see it pulled back. So one of the things we're dealing with over and over again is explaining to the family, no, you are due that payment. And we can help 'em fill out the form. Super easy form it's called, if you can just Google it's Social Security form 1724 and getting that will help you claim that last payment. They just need to know which beneficiaries to pay it to. So those simple things, I think government benefits definitely our number one source of questions the most confusion and the thing that we usually start out with because families are most stressed about it. Yeah. That's really helpful information. And so if someone were like you mentioned died on August 28th, would they be prorated for that last month of August? Unfortunately, no. They wouldn't be. Wow. So it is the last full month of life Yep. Is what you're saying. Okay. But they would be able to keep the check they received in August. Sure. So depending on when they die in the month and hey, they might die August 15th, they might not be getting their social security check till the end of the month. They get that notification. What? It's the same situation, they thought that check gets pulled back out or they never received that August payment. They assume that's okay, but they do need to apply for it. Okay. Yep. Okay. Good thing that you clear that up. What's a case that you're working on that you can share?... there was one gentleman who got spooked 'cause he thought the banks were gonna steal all his money and he went and bought a bunch of coffee cans and buried the equivalent of about $50,000 in $500 increments throughout his whole yard. Wow. And so the family is digging all these up and making sure that's now taken care of. All sorts of crazy, funny stories that we're dealing with. And our goal is to meet the family where they're at. A good example of that is during Covid, all the social security offices shut down. And so we had a situation where we had a woman who was helping her husband out of the tub. She fell back and broke her hip. So she goes into the hospital, but it's covid restrictions at the time, so it's completely shut down. She can't see anyone or talk to anyone. Her husband, who was already at the end of life, ended up passing away about a week later. So she can't have a funeral. She can't see her family. It's a really sad situation. They just did a direct cremation from this like direct cremation society, and the people who took down the information took it down wrong. And so when they reported to Social Security, they reported that she had passed away, not him. Oh no. They mixed the two social security numbers. So when we call Social Security to figure out her payments and benefits, they're like we have hers reported dead, but then we have this other death certificate coming from him, so we're just gonna freeze all the accounts right now. Which was her only source of payment. I'm like no, that's not it. How do we clear this up? Well, The policy is you gotta come into the office with a death certificate and an id. We can see you're alive. He's dead and we'll make that note. But all social security offices were closed, and so she has just been through the ringer. She had just lost her husband. She couldn't see her family. She's been in the hospital. And now she lost her only source of income for who knows how long. You would think that Kathy, who was helping her at the time would be like, I'm so sorry. Let me know if there's anything I can do. No, she didn't stop. She just keeps on bugging Social security. She goes up and up, hits a wall. She doesn't get any answers. The next thing I know is I get a call from the senator from Alaska's office and they're like, we have someone named Kathy. Does she work for you? And I'm like, yes. She has been calling us nonstop. What is going on? And I was like well, you have one of your voters who has this situation and she can't get through Social Security. We need your help. Next thing I know, social Security admin calls me and says, what can we do to help? Hey, you get a politician involved. I guess it works. Wow. But that, I think that's an awesome story! That just shows the type of people we hire, like Kathy, who they're gonna meet the family where they're at, figure out what their needs are, and then help 'em any possibly way we can, including, I guess, getting an act of Congress. That's awesome. Yep. Yay, Kathy. Yeah, she's amazing. That is awesome. Okay. Awesome. Is there something, Matt that that you would've liked me to ask that you would've liked to have talked about that's come to mind since we've chatted? Yeah. I think the one thing that I would love to talk about are the amazing people that work here. So a. A quick story. My wife got her master's degree at age 22. She got invited back by the university to become a full professor. So she's teaching classes. She's younger than most people including the most of her students. She's doing this research and everything. So we get married, we have our daughter, Eliza, and she calls me up one day and she goes I'm gonna quit my job. I was like, what? Are you kidding me? You're not just putting a job, you're losing a career. And she's like, I don't care. I just wanna be a mom. There's nothing else more important to me. And after that experience, I started noticing how many women sacrifice for caretaking. Sometimes they had to work part-time. Sometimes they're able to maintain a job, but it's just really hard. Sometimes they do stay home with their kids and oftentimes when they go to reenter the workforce, some employers will not recognize that gap in their resume and it's hard for them to get a good paying job that values them. So I hate that idea. I think moms are just the bomb. They're the best. And I went and interviewed about 20 stay-at-home moms when I was creating this company. And I said, if you were to re-enter the workforce, what would that need to look like for you? And they gave me all their information and that became our employee manual. And so my idea was that I could help them get a better job by getting them some experience, building their resume and then they could go off and get a job at an insurance company. You know, I've helped 1200 families deal with your insurance company. I know all the forms, I know all the processes, right? But I was shocked in two ways. One, they're not leaving. I thought they'd move. They're all staying.. The other thing that shocked me was that became our secret sauce. There is something about these women that they know how to be caring but not patronizing. Sometimes families just need to be like, look, we gotta get through this. You gotta buck up and go through it. We gotta get it off your plate because it will be better for you. And there's, sometimes if I say that, I might just sound like a jerk. But they can say it in such a loving, caring way. And they truly do just love and care for these families. And so we'll have these funeral homes who really care about their community and they're like, oh, if we send our families to a third party, are they not gonna be treated right? And they get these women on the phone. They are so amazing with the families that they'll often go back and be like, the best part of our service was that aftercare service. We even offended our clients because they're like, what mean? They're the best part. We are the best part. But I work in a company almost completely of women and they are fantastic. Wonderful. So smart, and do such a good job for these families. What do you call that person that's working for you? Are they a customer representative? Are they an agent? What do you call them? Estate specialist. Okay. Estate specialist, yeah. Can be really trained because we don't read off a script. We have to know all those things. We have a checklist that has to be covered. But the family's gonna be jumping all over the place and they have to be able to jump with them and not read a script or not need, like I, they have to have a mile deep of knowledge so they understand exactly what that family's asking. And then reign 'em back into where they need to be. Exactly. Yeah. Just like I'm sure you do all the time. Yeah. And I was a mom, so you know, a stay home mom for a while. So yes, I get it on several levels. So an estate specialist. Is assigned to the family and then do they stick with that or do they get a different person every step of the way? No, great question. They stick with one person every once in a while. They might need to have one other per one other state specialist step in who's maybe more of an expert in, veterans benefits or something like that. And so they'll tag team, but they're always dealing with one estate specialist through the whole process and maybe someone assisting on one or two items. Okay. Yeah. Good deal. you? How do people that are listening that maybe want this service how do they say, sign me up. Sure. So they can come to our website, at full-circlecare.com we right now don't market direct to consumer because we have really been focusing on our partnerships with funeral homes and hospices and law firms across the state or across the United States. But we plan on launching a little bit more and direct to consumer probably the end of next year. it's just me as a founder. I didn't get any investor dollars. We've grown slowly, but we don't, we can grow the right way. So that's why it's taken a little while to go direct to consumer. And then a lot of the funeral homes will provide this for their families. So you can go to our website sign up for it, or if you're a business owner that wanted to include this or gift the service then we have a big discounted fee that we can wholesale it to you and white label even under your brand name if we need to. And so how can people find you? You mentioned the website that will be in the, so in the show notes also? Yep. And are you on social media at all? Yep. Absolutely. So I can send you the links, but we're on LinkedIn. We're on Facebook and Instagram and we give a lot of state tips and tricks on all those things as well. Okay good deal. I follow you there. So I have seen some of your stuff. Thank you. So I can vouch for that. I can vouch for that. Matt, thank you so much for your time and I appreciate your heart and your vision for what you're doing for how you're helping families in the community. I believe that when you change the world for one person, you change the world and then that ripple effect goes out to their families and their communities and their neighbors. It just makes. Whole place better. And I like the Pollyanna world that I live in. I like helping people and I like the the effects that I see from that. And I know that the things that you're doing are having that same impact in. 37 states. So I think that's that, that's an awesome thing. So I'm so was excited to get you here and I'm excited to share this episode with others when it airs. And so again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. So thanks guys for listening again today. I so appreciate you coming. Please check the box that you want to subscribe, the little button so that you don't miss another episode, and we'll see you next time on the Probate podcast.