Christine Olson, a mother in Florida, experienced a nightmare. Her 22-year-old daughter died in a motorcycle accident. After her son found out there’d been an accident, it took 6½ hours of calling hospitals and frantic searching for Christine to receive confirmation that her daughter had died. The pain continued when she was told her daughter’s body was in the morgue, but it was closed for the night, and she would have to come back the next day to see her. She later found out that according to the National Association of Emergency Medicine, the average time nationally that it takes to notify the next of kin is 6 hours, and sometimes it takes up to a day. In her case, her daughter’s address was outdated on the driver’s license, so police had no idea who to contact.
This mom used her excruciating experience to found a non-profit organization aimed at preventing other families from experiencing the horror she endured. The organization is called TIFF – To Inform Families First. It provides a secure way that people can enter their next-of-kin contact information into a database that is only accessible to law enforcement personnel. When there is an accident, the police use the driver’s license or state ID numbers to scan the database, and they contact next of kin immediately.
TIFF is currently is available only in six states – Florida, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee. Over thirteen million people are registered in Florida, and the organization is working to get the database active in every state.
For clients or their family members who live in these six states, let them know about TIFF now. For those who don’t, keep track of how the database is spreading across the country so you can notify clients and their families as soon as it is in force where they live.
In the meantime, encourage clients to have ICE (In Case of Emergency) information in their phone, in a wallet or purse next to their driver’s license, on a tag that can be attached to car keys, in the glove compartment of the car, on a Road ID tag attached to their shoes or watchband, etc. The more readily accessible the information is, the more quickly family can be notified of a crisis.
When you educate clients about resources like this, you let them know you care about more than just their money. You care about them and their lives.