Surviving Spouses May Not Be Responsible for Partners’ Medical Bills

Your Money|Surviving Spouses May Not Be Responsible for Partners’ Medical Bills

The death of a spouse can be devastating, and in the aftermath, calls from collection agencies about medical bills and other debts could not come at a worse time.

But surviving spouses may not be responsible for unpaid medical bills, federal consumer agencies and legal experts say. Rules governing such debt vary by state and can be complex.

“They should not assume that they have to pay,” said Anna Anderson, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

Bereaved people are already navigating emotional, financial and logistical challenges, so a call from a debt collector may make them feel pressure to pay a bill they may not actually owe, said Julie Margetta Morgan, associate director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s research, monitoring and regulations division.

When a spouse dies, “people are in a particularly vulnerable time of life,” she said.

Two-thirds of new surviving spouses are women, and their average age is 71, the bureau said this month in a blog post. Many report being depressed and lonely. New surviving spouses with unpaid bills report an average of about $29,000 in unpaid medical bills, compared with about $16,000 among the rest of the population, which may reflect their late spouse’s bills, the bureau said.

Complaints to the consumer bureau from surviving spouses show confusion and frustration with medical debt. “Am I responsible for his medical bill?” one widowed spouse wrote, adding that a bill had been sent to a debt collector even after proof of her husband’s death had been provided. “Since they do not accept the fact that he died and see his death certificate, what can I do?”