Screen at the offer stage
Verify before onboarding so a decedent identity never enters payroll in the first place.
Employers & HR
Catch stolen identities at onboarding, not at audit
Employment fraud using a deceased person's Social Security number is one of the quietest forms of identity theft, and the employer usually discovers it during an audit, when remediation is at its most expensive.
Pre-hireScreening pointVerify before the identity reaches payroll systems.
7 DaysRecord freshnessDetects recent deaths that federal files have not published yet.
APIEmbeds in your stackDrops straight into existing background screening pipelines.
The exposure
What goes wrong without current deceased data
Every one of these failures traces back to the same root cause: the death happened weeks before the data you screen against reflected it.
- A decedent SSN passes standard onboarding and payroll validation
- Discovery typically happens at audit, long after wages have been reported
- Remediation involves payroll correction, tax filings and potential penalties
- Background screening providers relying on federal death files miss recent deaths entirely
The outcome
What changes for employers & hr screening
Avoid payroll remediation
Prevention removes the corrected filings, penalties and rework that follow a late discovery.
Strengthen screening products
Background screening providers can add a genuinely current deceased check to their reports.
Support compliance posture
Documented verification demonstrates reasonable diligence in your onboarding controls.
Where it fits in the hiring workflow
The check runs alongside your existing background screening step, after a conditional offer and before payroll setup. Screening providers embed the same endpoint directly into their report generation so every consumer report includes a deceased-identity indicator sourced from records that are days rather than months old.
The flow
From identity to decision
STEP 01
Send the identity
Post the name, date of birth and any combination of SSN or last known address to our verification endpoint, or upload a batch file through the dashboard.
STEP 02
We match against the live index
The identity is scored against our continuously refreshed nationwide deceased index, built from source records rather than downstream aggregators.
STEP 03
Get a decision-ready verdict
You receive a clear deceased / not-found verdict, a confidence score, the date of death where available and a reference ID you can store for audit.
STEP 04
Act before the loss
Block the application, freeze the account, pause the benefit payment or route to manual review, all before funds move and while recovery is still possible.
FAQ
Employers & HR Screening questions, answered
Frequently asked questions
When in the hiring process should this run?
After a conditional offer and alongside your existing background screening, before payroll onboarding begins. Running it at that point means a decedent identity is caught before wages are reported, which avoids the payroll and tax remediation that follows a later discovery.
We already use a background screening provider. Why add this?
Most screening providers source deceased data from the Social Security Administration's Death Master File, which typically lags the actual death by one to three months. Recent deaths are precisely the identities being used fraudulently, so a DMF-based check is structurally blind to the highest-risk cases.
Can background screening companies resell this as part of their product?
Yes. Screening providers are a core API customer segment. The endpoint embeds directly into report generation so a current deceased-identity indicator appears on every consumer report you issue. Volume-based pricing tiers are available.
What do we need to submit for a reliable result?
Name and date of birth are the minimum. Including the SSN raises confidence significantly, and last known address helps disambiguate common names. The response returns exactly which fields matched so your team can judge each result on its merits.
Other sectors
Death verification in adjacent industries
Banks & Credit UnionsCatch decedent account fraud before the funds moveLenders & Credit IssuersDecline decedent applications at the point of decisionInsurance CarriersValidate every claim against a current death indexGovernment & Public AgenciesStop improper payments before the next disbursementPension & Retirement FundsDetect deceased annuitants before the next payment runHealthcare & PharmacyProtect patient records from posthumous misuse
Close the gap for your employers & hr workflow
Share your use case and expected volume and we will issue sandbox credentials so your team can build and certify the integration before contracting.
