Sooner or later, our loved ones are going to die.

When it happens, family members are left to sort through a host of financial issues that start with funeral arrangements and usually end with passing along or disposing of a lifetime of personal belongings.

Here are some of the details that need to be addressed and how to handle them.

The first important step is to determine who's responsible for these matters. It makes a difference because financial institutions will only recognize authorized individuals.

Key positions include the executor of an estate, a beneficiary of an insurance policy or retirement fund, the holder of a power of attorney, a trustee, a joint owner of a bank account, or a co-signer on a loan or safe-deposit box. You can have as many copies of a death certificate as you want, but if your name and signature isn't on the safe-deposit box account, you're not getting into that box without a court order.

Speaking of death certificates, you will need lots of them, and you need them quickly. Most companies will need to have one to close out an account; insurance companies will require it to process a claim. Call the coroner's office in the community where the person passed away. If they don't handle it there, they can tell you who does.

"Every time you change the name on an investment, car, anything, you need a certified copy of the death certificate," says Connie Brezik, a certified public accountant and personal financial specialist in Scottsdale, Ariz.

If you're the executor of the person's estate, it's your job to pay any outstanding debts and disperse any remaining funds or property to the beneficiaries listed in the will.

Depending on the state, you may need to post a notice in the local paper where the person died, giving people a certain amount of time to make claims against the estate, says Dave Evans, vice president of retirement and financial planning with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. That keeps people from showing up months later to demand payment of a bill.

Getting a life insurance claim paid should be a fairly straightforward matter, Evans says. As a contract, it's not part of the person's estate and doesn't go through probate. Once it's submitted to the insurance company, it's usually paid within about 10 days and often covers immediate expenses, such as funeral arrangements and the payment of any pressing bills, such as a house payment.

In addition to an individual life insurance policy, if the person was still employed, life insurance may have been a company benefit. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the person's death, such as a car accident, an investigation may be done to determine the cause of death because it could trigger additional benefits. If a person died while traveling and had purchased travel insurance, there may be even more insurance benefits.

If the person who died was still employed, Evans says it's important to get a copy of the company manual and meet with the human resources manager.

"They could have a flexible spending account with money in it or retirement money that could be used for the spouse," Evans says.

Think about tax implications

That's also true of funds in an individual retirement account or 401(k). Any money in the account goes to the person's beneficiary. Evans cautions people to take their time in accessing those funds.

"Go slow; don't grab the money," he says. "There are options, so you can do some tax planning."

May Kay Foss, a CPA in Danville, Calif., recalls a woman who was the beneficiary of her husband's IRA. She was 49 and rolled it over into her own retirement account. That was a mistake, she says.

"She moved too fast," Foss says. "You can draw on these IRAs as a beneficiary. If she ever needed to take money out, she'd have a penalty. If it had been left in her husband's name, she could have used it as an emergency fund, and there wouldn't be a penalty involved."

Foss also recommends that before family members start disposing of personal items, such as clothes and books, check to make sure there isn't spare cash in them. She remembered being involved in closing one estate in which an elderly woman had passed away. Her children found rows of $100 bills under the lining paper of the kitchen cupboards.

She also remembered what her own family went through when her mother passed away. Like many people, her mother never talked to her children about her will, her life insurance or any other financial subjects. After she died, Foss and her siblings found a booklet in her home with all the pertinent details.

"We found that she'd changed the title of her property, so my brothers and sisters immediately inherited without going through anything," she says. "It would have been nice to know. When she became ill, we'd hired an attorney to address her care issues. She'd already taken care of it, and we didn't know."

To help families deal with the inevitable, Brezik recommends that all her clients create a "family notebook" with personal and business information. The personal section has sections for family members and friends to contact, as well as the names and numbers of their CPA, attorney, physician and other advisers.

There's a section for credit cards. Just line them up and make copies of the fronts and backs.

Then there's a checklist that tells where everything is -- your life insurance policy, the safe-deposit box, birth and marriage certificates, deeds, homeowners insurance, car titles, anything that someone would have to hunt for later on.

There's also a section for funeral issues.

"A lot of my clients won't complete this section," Brezik says. "It's too difficult for them. But just as many will."

If a business is involved

On the business side, she tells them to include copies of investment accounts and bank statements, wills, trusts, a general and medical power of attorney, an up-to-date net-worth statement, and any business documents, such as a company buy-sell agreement.

"Then what I like clients to do is write a little letter, and stick it on top," Brezik says. "Give some more personal instructions. 'Here are our wishes, why we did it.' It softens the blow a little.

"You're already dealing with a very stressful situation. We've worked with clients where things were in such disarray. They have to worry about going through boxes and put together a funeral at the same time."