When George Milian lost four family members in a matter of months, he found himself reeling from their deaths.
“I learned that first, you don’t expect death,” said Milian, who along with his wife, Diana, co-founded Steps After Life. “Three of the four deaths we didn’t expect; one we knew was coming.”
When, at 39, he was appointed to resolve the various accounts and other details after their deaths, he found it a daunting task.
“You’re going through papers, finding out what’s old, making phone calls, trying to understand what people have and don’t have,” George Milian said. “There are lots of online accounts, and each requires a username and password. It is absolutely time-consuming.”
He also found out he didn’t have a lot of time to do it.
“It’s extremely difficult for people who are juggling career and family,” he said. “It’s hard to take time off work when you’re trying to pay the bills.”
The experience led the Milians to launch Steps After Life with eight employees in 2016. George is chief strategy officer, while Diana is CEO and co-founder. Their team researches and closes outstanding accounts, agreements and other financial obligations in the days after a death. Some tasks can be performed with a single phone call; other assignments require uploading death certificates and other documents, followed by many follow-up phone calls.
The list of accounts that must be closed or transferred can be daunting: mail-order prescription accounts, internet or cable access, electric, water, lawn care and other monthly household bills; Netflix, Amazon Prime, gym memberships, magazine prescriptions, ad infinitum. By the way, some frequent flier miles, Amtrak points and other transportation affinity programs are transferable, while others aren’t.
Then there are hospital and doctor bills, and other invoices that families should review for double-billing and other debatable charges. That takes a lot of phone calls, too.
“We have conversations with the doctors, the dentists, and tell them that the patient has died, and where applicable, that debt is no longer valid,” Diana Milian said.
State and federal statutes dictate which creditors should be paid and which shouldn’t. In some states, such as Florida, medical bills take precedence if they were incurred within 60 days of the decedent’s death.
Steps After Life’s one-time fees range from $400 to $1,800, depending on the level of service the survivors want. Before Steps After Life can perform some of the services, the family signs a document that gives the company power of attorney. The company does not act as family executor, however.
“We do not become the executor, no,” Diana Milian said. “We work with the executor to resolve all these accounts. We can sign a limited power of attorney, though, and some companies require us to have it—but for the most part, it’s not needed.”
The Bronze level of service, at $400, pays for a credit lockdown, which prevents others from opening a new account in the deceased’s name; closing out one or two credit accounts; calls to the Social Security Administration or the Veterans Administration, if needed; and placing the deceased on the Do Not Call List.
Included in the Platinum level service, which costs $3,000, the company finalizes the paperwork on just about anything in the decedent’s life, including auto, boat and other loans; bank accounts and cryptocurrency; Costco, gym and other memberships; homeowner insurance, lawn care, pool service, snow removal, water delivery, veterinarian service and more.
Completing credit lockdowns and notifying creditors is vital to preventing scammers from stealing credit, Diana Milian said. Thieves search obituaries in the newspaper and online for opportunities.
“It’s vital to immediately lock down the credit cards and notify the credit bureaus when someone passes,” she said.
The couple—who moved to Naples in August—co-founded the company in Detroit in 2016; it became an LLC in 2018. The eight After Life concierges, or employees, in Naples and around the country can provide the service.
“Sometimes families are not in the right frame of mind to handle all these details,” Diana Milian said. “They are still processing everything after the loss. For them to work on extra stuff can add to the depression. We can help a great deal.”
One customer, who identified herself as Norma, provided the Milians a testimonial.
“I wish I had found them sooner, especially before my husband had passed because of the significant and tremendous work they accomplished all within a short span of time,” she wrote. “This allowed me to be able to focus on my grieving and my child instead of all the overwhelming activities that broke me down and stressed me out on a daily basis.”
This story published in The Naples Press on Sept. 20.
