Best Account & Asset Discovery Tools
Finding everything they had—so nothing slips through the cracks.
When someone dies, families are often stunned by how hard it is to figure out what the person had—bank accounts, subscriptions, insurance policies, digital accounts, loyalty programs. This post explains why discovery is its own massive challenge and highlights tools that specialize in uncovering what’s out there.
The average person has over 100 online accounts. There are billions of dollars in unclaimed assets and forgotten insurance policies across the U.S. If the deceased didn’t leave a tidy list, discovery becomes a detective mission—and these tools are your best investigators.
The Key Distinction: Use It Now vs. Use It After
Some of these tools are designed to be used while you’re alive—as a personal audit of your own digital footprint. Others are built specifically for after someone has died, when a family member or executor needs to find accounts they didn’t know existed. The post should make this crystal clear for every tool.
The Best Account & Asset Discovery Tools, Compared
| Tool | When to Use It | Cost | What It Does |
|---|---|---|---|
| GhostSweep | Now A personal digital audit while you’re alive. |
Free email scan; paid plans ~$8/mo for full discovery + deletion | Connects to your Gmail or Outlook and scans your inbox to find every service you’ve ever signed up for—going back years. Also finds forgotten gift cards, unused rewards, breach exposures, and active subscriptions. Think of it as a full X-ray of your digital shadow. Best used as a proactive audit: run it now so your family doesn’t have to piece things together later. |
| Sunset | After After someone has died. Built for executors and families. |
Free to families. $0 for discovery, probate docs, and estate account. | Automated estate settlement: discovers financial accounts, insurance policies, property, vehicles, brokerage and retirement accounts, and liabilities. Generates county-specific probate documents for all 50 states. Provides an FDIC-insured estate account (up to $3M). Also handles account closures. SOC 2 Type II certified. Finds most accounts in one business day. |
| Unclaimed.org | Both Check for yourself now, or after a death for forgotten assets. |
Free | NAUPA’s official database for unclaimed property across all 50 states. Search for forgotten bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, insurance payouts, uncashed checks. There’s over $80 billion in unclaimed property in the U.S. After a death, search using the deceased’s name and previous addresses. |
| MissingMoney.com | Both A companion search that catches additional records. |
Free | Multi-state search engine for unclaimed assets. Run both this and Unclaimed.org—they pull from overlapping but not identical databases. Takes 30 seconds and could surface accounts worth thousands. |
Which Tool Do You Need? A Quick Decision Guide
“I’m alive and want to audit my own accounts.” → Run GhostSweep on your email, then search Unclaimed.org and MissingMoney.com. Do this once a year.
“Someone has died and I need to find what they had.” → Start with Sunset for comprehensive estate discovery. Then search Unclaimed.org and MissingMoney.com.
“I want to make sure my family can find everything when I’m gone.” → Run GhostSweep now, then store the results in your Everplans vault or estate documents.
Why This Matters
Here’s what nobody tells you about losing someone: the hardest part isn’t always the grief. Sometimes it’s sitting at their kitchen table with a stack of unopened mail, no idea what accounts they had, and a sinking feeling that something important is slipping through the cracks. A forgotten life insurance policy. A brokerage account nobody knew about. Subscriptions still charging a card that needs to be closed.
Discovery is the invisible job of loss. It doesn’t come with instructions, and most families don’t even know these tools exist. That’s why we wrote this.
And if you’re reading this while you’re still healthy and planning ahead—even better. Run a GhostSweep scan. Search Unclaimed.org. It takes five minutes, and you might be surprised at what surfaces. More importantly, you’ll be giving your family a map instead of a mystery.
Don’t Wait Until You’re Searching Alone
Good Grief Relief helps families navigate everything that comes after a loss—including finding what matters and closing what needs closing.
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