Do any of you accept the Death Notification from Social Security Administration as "written proof of death addressed to the bank"? What steps do you take upon notification of death? Do you restrict the account, freeze the account, etc.?

We do freeze/restrict accounts, cancel debit cards, etc. in response to DNEs.

The specific steps we take depend on the type of account(s) and the ownership of the accounts.

The first thing we do is compare the date of death that SSA has given on the DNE to the date of the last payment they made to the customer. If the date we received it is after the date of death, we initiate an ACH R15 to return the funds as deceased. Our system automatically assigns a 'DNE Freeze' to the account when a DNE is received, so from then on everthing goes to the unposted list and a clerk must review it and bring it to the attention of an officer.

As JacFSB stated, other steps are dependent on the ownership of the account.

Be sure to consider any state law requirements or restrictions when deciding what actions to take upon receipt of any type of notice of death.

We do the same as Jac. We only freeze accounts if it is the sole owner. In addition, we cancel all debit cards in their name, place alerts on any account they sign on, see if there are any benefit payments received after death, restrict their online banking account, and whatever else the particular situation calls for. We are actually going to create a worksheet to help streamline the process.