Home›Cases We Fund›Wrongful Death
The funeral home wants a decision within days. The death certificate may come back marked pending while the medical examiner waits on toxicology. And in many states nobody can file the case at all until a court appoints someone to speak for the estate, which your attorney can confirm for your state. If we can approve the case, a wrongful death settlement advance can put cash in your family's hands during that first stretch, before the lawsuit has really started.
Start with the word non-recourse. Defense lawyers in these cases often argue the death came from an illness your loved one already had. If that argument wins and the claim recovers nothing, any advance we made is ours to absorb, not yours to repay. Nothing is due month to month, and your credit is never pulled. What we do need is an attorney handling the claim for a share of the recovery. This is a purchase of future case proceeds, not a loan.
No credit check. No monthly payments. No cost to apply. If your Wrongful Death case does not recover, you owe us nothing and you keep what we advanced. You must have an attorney handling the claim on contingency.
Most injury claims begin the week you hire a lawyer. A wrongful death claim often cannot begin until a court appoints a personal representative for the estate, and your attorney can tell you whether your state works that way. Add a medical examiner who has not released findings and a police investigation nobody will discuss while it is open, and month eight can arrive with the complaint still unfiled.
A household loses its income the day of the death, but the costs come first. The funeral home wants payment before the service. The carrier behind a nursing home chain or a trucking company has no reason to hurry, and a family running on nothing is the family that takes the first number offered. If you qualify, funding can put cash in the account now, so the surviving spouse is not choosing between the mortgage and the headstone.
Even a resolved case is not a paid case. The recovery may have to be split between the family's claim and a separate claim for what your loved one suffered before dying, divided among survivors, cleared of hospital and insurance liens, and in some situations approved by a judge. Your attorney can tell you which steps apply in your state. All of that can take months after the day everyone agrees on a number.
Californians: read what the Consumer Legal Funding Act requires on page one of your contract, and where the months actually go before you sign anything.
There are no receipts to submit and no restrictions on how you spend it, other than this: funding is for your living expenses, not for paying the costs of the litigation itself.
Never your credit, your income or your job history. Only the claim.
State law decides who may bring the claim. Sometimes it is the estate's personal representative, sometimes a spouse, child or parent directly, and your attorney will tell us which rule governs your case. We have to know whose name the recovery lands in before we fund anyone.
The fight in most of these files is not whether something went wrong, but whether it killed your loved one. Autopsy findings, toxicology, prior medical records and an expert review usually answer that. Cases where your loved one was already sick or elderly tend to take longest to sort out.
A death claim usually exceeds the first policy, so the question is what sits above it. Excess and umbrella layers, a corporate parent's coverage, a commercial auto policy on a work vehicle, and underinsured motorist coverage on your own household policy all get checked before anything is funded.
Value turns on who was counting on your loved one. Age, earnings, a surviving spouse, minor children, and local verdicts all matter. Hospital and health plan liens matter too, since they usually come out of the recovery. How that plays out depends on the jurisdiction, so ask your attorney.
Tell us who you are, what happened and who represents you. No credit check, no bank statements, no employment history — the case is the application.
2 minutesWe request the case file from your law firm and handle the paperwork with their staff. Your attorney's involvement is a signature and a few documents — not hours of work.
Same dayOur underwriters look at liability, injuries, treatment and available insurance coverage to decide what your claim can support. Your credit score and income never enter into it.
24 hours (typical)You review a plain-English agreement that states exactly what you will owe at settlement. Sign it and funds go out the same day by direct deposit, wire, or in-person pickup.
Same dayOften you can. Medical examiners frequently hold a final ruling until toxicology comes back, and that can take weeks or months, so we do not treat a pending certificate as a stop sign.
What we ask for instead is whatever your attorney already has: the police or incident report, the hospital records from the final admission, and the insurance information. Once the office sends that over, a decision typically comes back in about a day, and funding usually goes out the same day if we approve and you sign. Those are typical timelines, not promises. If the cause is genuinely in dispute, we will say so rather than sit on your file.
It depends on your state and on who you are. In some places a surviving spouse or child can pursue the claim in their own name. In others a court has to appoint a personal representative before the claim exists at all. Your attorney knows which applies and can tell us in one call.
If that appointment is still pending, say so on the application. We would rather start the review while you wait than make you wait twice.
Sometimes. Where several survivors are expected to share a recovery, each person is reviewed on their own and funded only against their own expected share. Where a single personal representative controls the claim, funding usually runs through that person, and your attorney can explain how your state divides the proceeds.
Either way your attorney has to acknowledge the agreement, so raise it with the office before either of you applies.
It does not stop you from applying. The prosecution runs on its own track, and a conviction can help the civil claim later, though your attorney can explain how much weight it carries in your state.
What it usually does is stretch the timeline. Witnesses go quiet on advice of counsel, records stay sealed while detectives work, and some courts pause the civil side until the criminal matter ends. Families often need money most during that pause.
No. An advance is tied to the proceeds of the claim and nothing else. Repayment comes out of the settlement or verdict when it arrives, and your attorney handles it from the case funds before the balance reaches the family.
The home, the bank accounts, the life insurance and anything else in the estate stay out of it. Your own credit, your car and your paycheck are not on the hook either.
Often yes. A wrongful death claim is not only about lost wages. It can also account for the household work your loved one did, the care and guidance the family lost, the funeral costs, and what they went through before they died. Which of those count varies by state, and your lawyer is the one to ask.
What we look at is the whole picture: who depended on them, what coverage sits behind the defendant, and how solid the proof of fault is. Wrongful death files can also run longer than most, because the estate paperwork or the autopsy may still be open. We fund throughout the US, subject to state law and availability, and consumer legal funding is restricted or unavailable in some states.
Underwriting looks at the same things across every case type. If yours is not listed anywhere on this site, call or text and ask.
Apply in about two minutes. We contact your attorney, review the case, and if you're approved you can have funds the same day. No credit check, no monthly payments, and if you lose, you owe us nothing.