Loss can be bewildering. We’ve done our best to clarify the details and give you everything you need to get started. 

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, need assistance with bureaucracies and the estate, are contending with family tensions, 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 program in the app covers the many aspects of loss: each task, decision, and challenge you may face, and all of the information and advice you need to gain peace of mind that you are progressing correctly. Whatever you are dealing with, whether it is 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 searching for important documents, finding and filing the will, preventing identity theft, managing accounts, how to handle 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. These services should not be used as a substitute or replacement for mental health care or professional grief support, however. The Helpline 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 you guidance to every task your family may be facing, real-time support from Care Specialists via our Helpline, tools that simplify and streamline challenging tasks, a secure vault for uploading and organizing your loved one’s important documents, audio episodes that help you come to terms 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 updating our app all the time, adding new advanced features 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 what state they lived in, settling all of their affairs could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. But most can be completed in a matter of months, and our guidance will get you 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, some of the tasks in the app, such as those dealing with probate and the estate, will need to be carried out by the person who has been appointed 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 language without all the legalese and technical jargon. And any important terms that need to be defined can be found in our helpful in-app glossary.

We’ll give you the information you need to know to understand how estates and probate work. For personalized legal assistance that applies to your specific situation, we recommend you contact an attorney, and we’re here to help you search for one if it will help you and your family.

The knowledge and advice in our app and on our website have been thoroughly researched, under the supervision of and vetted by experts in the subject matter. While our information should not be considered a replacement for individual advice from your own lawyer or accountant, it will provide you with a basis for understanding the issues and steps involved.

Empathy is not an accounting or law firm and not a financial advisor, and we cannot replace the services of a lawyer, an accountant, or a financial planner. Our guidance is meant to help you understand the ins and outs of the systems you may be dealing with, 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 whenever you need them.

Empathy is committed to ensuring that your data is and always will be 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 behind two-factor authentication including your own private PIN code.

If you need help with any issue you encounter, whether it is an aspect of loss, grief, or logistics, or a technical problem, our Care Specialists are available via the Helpline 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 you with things like filling out forms, and can help you search for specialized experts in your area.

Care Specialists are available to chat Monday through Saturday, 9am-8pm ET, and you can leave them messages during other times. StoneMor families get Helpline priority so that a Care Specialist will be able to attend to your needs 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 StoneMor have partnered to make sure that every family receives the best care and support for their entire journey through loss. Empathy is thus proud to be among the range of resources and services that StoneMor offers to help families cope with the challenges they face at this difficult time.

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

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