Bereavement support

Empathy is for bereaved persons, offering personalized, step-by-step guidance through the emotional and practical challenges of losing a loved one.

Empathy helps families navigate the challenging process after losing a loved one. Combining technology and human support, Empathy can assist with:

• planning a funeral,
• writing an obituary,
• closing down a loved one's accounts,
• settling their financial affairs,
• processing your emotions,
• and more.

The app contains extensive resources for helping to navigate grief, including a daily healing practice that helps build and maintain a routine, audio episodes, guided meditations, and a space for reflecting on your own emotions.

With a team of Care Managers by your side, you’re fully supported as you tackle each task, decision, and challenge. Plus, you have access to all the information and advice needed to ensure you're proceeding correctly.

With Empathy, you have access to a Care Manager who will learn about you and your family's situation. A Care Manager can:

• provide you with compassionate guidance,
• take certain tasks off your hands, and,
• connect you to professional service providers in your area if you need them.

Your Empathy account also gives you access to the Empathy web and mobile apps, with extensive resources available in both English and French.

After asking you a few introductory questions, the app will create a personal care plan – a step-by-step guide to help you and your family during this time.

You can check off completed steps as you go, set reminders, and use the app’s collaboration features to coordinate with other family members.

You can even filter your care plan by topic, to show the steps related to that topic. Topics include:

• Immediate arrangements
• Informing others
• The funeral
• Searching for documents
• The will
• Identity theft prevention
• The house
• Estate administration
• Applying for benefits
• Managing accounts
• Bills & debt
• Property & assets
• Grief & grieving
• Personal belongings
• Taxes

Empathy provides innovative tools to lessen your burden during this difficult time, such as:

Obituary Creator: Crafts a meaningful tribute honouring your loved one's life based on your answers to a few questions.

Digital Vault: Allows you to securely upload and organize all important documents.

Funeral Homes Tool: Helps you easily locate top-rated funeral homes in your area and receive price quotes based on your specific requests.

Additionally, your assigned Care Manager can assist with various tasks, including:

• obtaining necessary forms,
• locating service providers,
• finding professionals in your area,
• and more.

Our team of Care Managers includes experienced professionals from diverse backgrounds in social work, behavioural health, and other fields, and have extensive training in grief support.

If you need specific legal or financial advice, your Care Manager can help you search for local professionals to help you and your family.

While your Care Manager can assist with general guidance and information about legal and financial matters, they’re not legal or accounting professionals, and cannot provide you with specific legal or financial advice. (Please see Empathy's Terms of Service for more details.)

Grief is complex and different for everyone. Empathy provides support through the many aspects of grief with an array of resources and features.

Through Empathy, you can listen to audio episodes about the emotional journey of grief. Created with the help of internationally renowned grief experts, they teach you how to understand and reframe painful emotions and find strategies for getting through the difficult moments.

You can also open Empathy’s  grief meditations, voice-guided experiences that give you a safe space to fully feel your feelings, gain some measure of relaxation, and even find meaning in your pain.

Within the app you’ll find a space for tracking your emotional process and reflecting on your feelings in a private journal. The app also offers a daily healing practice where you can schedule regular check-ins and set reminders to take this important time for yourself.

Finally, Care Managers are available for guidance, advice, and to offer a listening ear. If needed, your Care Manager can help you find a therapist or grief group. While these services are helpful, they shouldn’t be used as a substitute or replacement for professional mental health care.

Yes. The Empathy app allows for several family members, aged 18 years or older and residing in Canada, to use a single account.

You can invite others to join your account directly from the app by sending them a text message link to download the app to their own mobile phones. Once connected, you can use the app to collaborate and complete tasks.

The advisor assisting you with your claim will provide you with a unique registration link based on your eligibility. Use this link to register and access your Empathy account. In case you do not have an advisor, please contact 1-877-786-5433 to receive the registration link.

Coping with a loved one's passing is deeply personal, and the challenges can extend over months or even years. Empathy offers support at each step, providing support for you and your family for up to two years.

However, Empathy understands that every family's needs are unique and if you need more time or extra resources, you may contact Empathy and they will do everything they can to support you.

Settling a loved one’s estate can take anywhere from a few months to a few years. It depends on the size and complexity of the estate and the province or territory where your loved one lived.

Absolutely. Empathy can help you at any time, whether you’re making immediate arrangements, wrapping up the last details of the estate, or looking for resources to cope with grief. Grief has no timeline, and Empathy support is available whenever you need it, even months or years after your loss.

Empathy is offered to eligible* beneficiaries who may invite others to join their account, as appropriate. Empathy has resources to help with planning a service, writing an obituary, organizing papers, as well as dealing with the difficult emotions that come with all of these tasks. Family members can all work together using a single account.

Keep in mind that some tasks, such as dealing with probate and the estate, need to be carried out by the person appointed as the representative of your loved one’s estate, such as an executor or personal representative. If that person isn’t a family member using the app, it’s a good idea to invite them to participate.

No, you don't need any prior knowledge of estate laws to use Empathy. Empathy’s goal is to make the process as accessible as possible, by:

• Explaining general processes in simple, easy-to-understand language.
• Providing the essential information you need to understand how estates and probate work.

For personalized legal assistance that applies to your specific situation, we recommend contacting an attorney. Empathy can help you search for one who can assist you and your family if needed.

The knowledge and advice in the Empathy app and on their website has been thoroughly researched and vetted by subject matter experts . While the information isn’t a replacement for individual advice from your own lawyer or accountant, it’ll provide a basis for understanding the issues and steps you might need to take.

No, Empathy doesn’t provide personalized financial, legal or tax advice. Empathy's guidance is meant to help you understand at a high level what you’ll need to do. Please see Empathy’s Terms of Service for more details. Empathy can help you search for professionals in your area whenever you need them.

Empathy prioritizes the safety, security, and privacy of your data. Empathy employs industry-standard 256-bit encryption to safeguard your information during storage and transmission. For added protection, your most sensitive data is secured behind two-factor authentication (2FA), which includes a personal PIN code that only you know. Empathy’s robust security measures ensure that your information remains confidential and protected at all times.