Unclaimed Money is Becoming an Issue With State Governments
The mammoth pile of unclaimed money has created more problems for both state and federal government in the last couple of years. All the officials in charge of the unclaimed funds are in consensus that the problem of unclaimed funds has been spiraling through the roof and with no viable solution in sight.
The growth of unclaimed funds across all the state treasuries has been relentless and no strategies seem to minimize the deficit between the unclaimed funds and the disbursed funds. Even the smaller states are now reporting large amounts of unclaimed funds.
In addition to the state treasuries and federal government, banks and insurance companies are also reporting large volumes of abandoned and unclaimed funds. State officials in New York and California are facing the mammoth challenge of locating the owners of huge unclaimed monies, $10 billion and $6 billion respectively. A recent Press Release reported about half a million dollars in unclaimed money is waiting to be claimed from former Washington Mutual Bank.
NAUPA (National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators) has been working with the state treasuries, federal agencies, banks, and insurance agencies for creating a broad national framework for the disbursement of unclaimed funds, but it has been an uphill battle thus far.
Most of the larger states have realized the enormity of the situation and have embraced different programs while utilizing print media and electronic media to create awareness in as many people as possible. These programs are meant to spread the awareness about the unclaimed funds and also the process of claim.
State and federal agencies are working in collaboration and are taking unorthodox measures to spread the awareness about the unclaimed funds. National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers, has been collaborating with state treasuries for a quite some time to bring the situation under control. In spite of this large scale effort by everybody in the state machinery, the unclaimed money pile only seems to grow at a very scorching pace.
