If one of your close relatives has recently passed away, and you both lived in the U.S., Empathy can help you. Whether you need help applying for benefits or assistance with the estate, or are overwhelmed by uncertainty and grief, our app can guide you, take tasks off your hands, and help you find information, comfort, and peace of mind.

After asking a few introductory questions, the app will present you with a personalized experience that guides you through the processes and pitfalls of loss. The main Today screen gives you access to audio episodes, informative Guides, and other resources to help you through these challenging days, adapted to your situation and your needs.

From there, you can access your Checklist: each of the steps to follow, laid out on a single, unified timeline. Tap on each step to get all the information and guidance you need to complete it, and for links to tools within the app that can assist you with specific steps—or even do them for you in some cases.

From each step, you can also access Guides that give you further, in-depth information about the subject.

You can check off steps that are completed or delete them from the timeline, set yourself reminders to complete particular steps on dates of your choosing, and assign them to other family members using the app’s collaboration feature.

Your Checklist can be further tailored to your needs by answering more questions about your family’s unique situation, so you see only the steps that are relevant to you and none of the ones that are not.

If you are specifically interested in steps about a particular topic in loss, such as funeral planning or dealing with your loved one’s house, you can filter your Checklist to show only those steps.

Our guided experience covers the many aspects of loss: each task, decision, and challenge you may face, plus all of the information and advice you may need to know that you are proceeding correctly. Regardless of what you’re experiencing – whether it’s knowing how to collaborate with your family, understanding how to organize your loved one’s finances, or making sure every detail is private, safe, and secure – our expert guidance can help you.

Topics covered in the app include planning a funeral, searching for important documents, finding and filing a will, preventing identity theft, managing accounts, handling probate, and more.

Grief is a complex process that everyone experiences in their own way. The Empathy app provides support and guidance to the many aspects and pitfalls of grief, with audio chapters you can listen to at any point in your journey. Created under the supervision of internationally renowned grief experts, these episodes teach you how to understand and reframe painful emotions and find strategies for getting through the most difficult moments.

You can also listen to one of our grief meditations, a voice-guided experience that gives you a safe space to fully feel your feelings, gain some measure of relaxation, and even find meaning in your pain.

In addition, our Care Specialists are available to offer a listening ear, discuss your state of mind, and offer comfort and advice. Still, our services should not be used as a substitute or replacement for mental health care or professional grief support. The Care Team can assist you in finding the right therapist or grief group, should you need one.

Your account gives you access to all app features, including a step-by-step Checklist tailored to give guidance to the tasks you and your family are performing, real-time support from our Care Team, tools that simplify and streamline challenging tasks, a secure vault for uploading and organizing your loved one’s documents, audio episodes that help you cope with grief, and the ability to collaborate with up to 10 family members on the same account.

Absolutely. The Empathy app is designed to be responsive to your needs and can be used at any stage in the process, whether you’re dealing with immediate arrangements, wrapping up the last details of the estate, or just looking for support during your grief.

Beyond the guidance, advice, and information contained in your Checklist, Empathy gives you access to innovative tools that can take tasks off your plate and do them for you. For example, our Closing Accounts tool saves you the time and effort of closing the dozens of accounts your loved one may have left open. Just answer a few questions and upload the necessary documents, and we’ll take care of closing the accounts.

The app also allows you to upload and organize all important documents in our secure digital vault. And our Care Specialists can assist you with many other tasks, including helping fill out necessary forms, contacting relevant authorities and offices, locating service providers, scheduling calls and visits, and finding experts in your area.

We’re continuously updating our app to add new features and tools that will take even more tasks out of your hands and do them for you.

Depending on the size and complexity of your loved one’s estate, as well as where they lived, settling their affairs could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. It’s likely most estates can be settled in a matter of months, but with the Empathy app, you can move at your preferred pace and take comfort in knowing we’re here to help you progress through it all with relative ease.

Empathy is for anyone who has experienced a loss in the family. We have resources that can help you if you’re involved in planning a service, writing an obituary, organizing papers, or clearing out the house, as well as dealing with the difficult emotions that come with all of it. Up to 10 family members can collaborate on your account, so you can divide up all of the important tasks, share information, and track each other’s progress.

That said, Empathy provides in-depth support for financial and bureaucratic matters such as probate, and therefore the app will be particularly useful to the representative of your loved one’s estate, such as an executor or administrator. If that person is not one of the family members using the app, it is a good idea to make sure they are invited to participate.

Not at all. Everything in Empathy is explained in simple, easy-to-understand terms without the legalese and technical jargon. And any important terms you need defined can be found in our helpful in-app glossary.

We give you the information you need to understand how estates and probate work. For personalized legal assistance that applies to your specific situation, we recommend you contact an attorney and can help you find one for you and your family.

The knowledge and advice in our app and on our website have been thoroughly researched, with support from subject matter experts. While our information is not a replacement for individual advice from your own attorney or accountant, it will provide you with a basis for understanding the issues and steps involved with estate settlement.

Empathy is not an accounting or law firm and not a financial advisor, and we cannot replace the services of an attorney, accountant, or financial advisor. Our guidance is meant to help you understand and navigate the estate settlement process, but we are not able to give individualized financial, legal, or tax advice. (Please see our Terms of Service for more details.) We can, however, help you search for professionals in your area if you need them.

Empathy is committed to ensuring your data is safe, secure, and private. We use bank-level 256-bit encryption to store and transmit data over the internet, and your most private information is protected with two-factor authentication that includes your own private PIN code.

If your family needs help with any issue you encounter, our Care Specialists are available in the app to chat with you in real time. Care Specialists will respond with sensitivity and understanding, and can provide detailed guidance for your particular situation. They can also help with things like filling out forms and similar tasks.

Care specialists are available to chat 24/7. Families who sign up through New York Life are given priority to ensure their questions and support needs are resolved quickly.

Empathy’s Care Specialists are experienced professionals with backgrounds in psychology, social work, and similar fields, who are trained to support matters related to the loss of a loved one.

While the Care Specialists can assist with general guidance and information about legal and financial matters, they are not legal or accounting professionals, and cannot provide you with specific legal or financial advice. (Please see our Terms of Service for more details.)

If you should need specific legal or financial advice, a Care Specialist will be happy to help you search for local professionals who can help you and your family.

Empathy and New York Life have partnered to ensure New York Life beneficiaries receive the best care and support for their entire journey through loss. Empathy is proud to be among the range of resources and services that New York Life offers to help families cope with the challenges they face after losing a loved one.

Please reach out to our support team at support@empathy.com and we’ll get back to you right away.

Contact us at help@empathy.com and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you have.