Telling everyone at once, without twenty phone calls

In the first days after a death, the job that looms largest is telling everyone — banks, super, utilities, Centrelink, the tax office. Families assume this means dozens of separate calls, each one repeating the same sentence to a stranger. It mostly does not have to.

There is a free government service built for exactly this: the Australian Death Notification Service (deathnotification.gov.au). You enter the person's details once, it confirms the death against the registered record, and it notifies the organisations you select — banks, utilities and others — in one submission. It is free, it is not compulsory, and it exists specifically so grieving families are not making the same call fifteen times. Most people have never heard of it, which is the single reason we lead with it here.

One thing the notification service does not fully replace. If the person was getting a Centrelink, Medicare or Child Support payment, Services Australia needs to be told directly, and there is a deadline: within 28 days of the death, so their records are corrected and payments are not overpaid. There is a specific form for this (the SA116, “Advice of death”). Tell them early even if you have used the notification service, because that 28-day clock is theirs and it does not wait.

CareLoop shows you the path and who to contact. We do not act on your behalf or lodge anything for you — these are your notifications to make, and the links below go straight to the real government services, never a middleman.