Informant

Informant: Who Supplies the Facts on a Death Certificate

The informant is the person who provides the personal information recorded on a death certificate — the decedent’s full name, date and place of birth, Social Security number, usual residence, marital status, parents’ names and occupation. The informant’s own name and relationship to the decedent are printed on the certificate alongside those facts, which makes the role a matter of public record rather than an administrative detail.

Who Usually Serves as Informant

There is no fixed list, and states set their own order of preference. In practice it is the surviving spouse, an adult child, a parent, or a sibling. Where no relative is available, it may be the person who was responsible for the decedent’s care, the executor of the estate, or an official at the institution where the death occurred. The funeral director usually transcribes what the informant reports rather than acting as informant themselves.

What the Informant Is Not Responsible For

The informant does not supply medical information. Cause of death, manner of death and the times and circumstances of dying are certified by a physician, medical examiner or coroner. This division explains why the two halves of a death certificate are corrected by different procedures: personal facts through a documentary amendment, medical facts only with the certifier’s involvement.

Why Accuracy Here Causes Problems Later

Informant-supplied fields are recorded at the worst possible moment, from memory, often by someone who was not present for the events being recorded. A misremembered mother’s maiden name or an approximate birth date propagates into probate, pension and insurance claims, and every one of those will need the certificate corrected before it proceeds. If you are asked to serve as informant, check what you are unsure of rather than estimating — a short delay is far cheaper than an amendment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does being the informant give me the right to order the death certificate?

Not by itself in every state. Eligibility usually rests on your relationship to the decedent or a documented legal interest. In practice most informants are close relatives and qualify on that basis.

Can there be more than one informant?

One informant is named on the certificate. Families frequently gather the details together, but a single person attests to them.

What if I do not know some of the details?

Tell the funeral director or registrar rather than guessing. States allow fields to be recorded as unknown, and an honest “unknown” is easier to amend later than a confident error.

Can the informant be changed after the certificate is filed?

The recorded informant is part of the filed record and is not usually swapped out. What can be corrected is the information they supplied, through the state’s amendment process.

Related Terms

Death Certificate, Decedent, Cause of Death, Coroner’s Report, Proof of Kinship