What Social Security says to do if you're incorrectly listed as dead

More than 3 million deaths are reported to the Social Security Administration each year. Among them, a small portion — less than 10,000 — are erroneous and need to be corrected, according to the agency.

"Our records are highly accurate," the SSA stated Monday in a blog post following up on an update released Sunday by the SSA on its death record. Of the millions of death reports received by Social Security each year, less than one-third of 1% are incorrect and need to be fixed, it stated. 

Still, a person wrongly reported as deceased "can be devastating to the individual, spouse and dependent children," as benefits are stopped and the process of restoring them can be long and challenging, according to SSA.