Cash Unclaimed Media Room

Colorado has proven satisfactory results in giving back unclaimed money to its citizens. The Department of Treasury of the Colorado state is satisfied that the results of Great Colorado Payback are very encouraging, and the state is hopeful of emptying its coffers of the unclaimed cash that legally belongs to the citizens.

State Treasurer Cary Kennedy recently announced that the state paid claims totaling over $500,000 to a single claimant in Fort Collins. It was one of the 20 claims valued between $40,000 and $1,000,000 during the last fiscal year. This year the department had eight claims that were worth more than $100,000. However, an average claim is about $100.

The large amounts held by the states of unclaimed cash is appealing to officials as a solution to fix the high budge deficit. The center on Budget and Policy Priorities has set the states seriously thinking over the budget deficit. It estimates that the combined state budget deficit over the next two and a half years is likely to be about $350 billion. This will account for about 20% of the state budget.

Unclaimed money has become a major concern for many U.S. States. U.S. state governments are perplexed over the situation, in spite of the aggressive efforts taken up by the states to spread awareness, inform owners and return unclaimed cash to the citizens, the turnover of unclaimed money is smaller than expected.

Various states have launched variety of programs, hunts, campaigns, road runs, etc., to reach out to the owners and return the money; however, the amount of money returned to the owners form a very small part of $32 billion of unclaimed money.

Unclaimed Money Remains Constant

U.S. states are trying their best to return $32 billion of unclaimed cash to the Americans who are the rightful owners of the cash. States are finding every possible avenue, like sending personal memos, arranging outreach events, carrying out TV broadcasts, etc., to reach out to every citizen.

In order to spread awareness about unclaimed cash at grass root level, states have sought refuge of newspapers as well. Newspapers have a very deep penetration and they are available to almost every citizen across the states.

Initiatives by the States

Unclaimed lottery jackpots have been contributing to the large amounts of unclaimed money lying with the states. People buy lottery tickets in order to create a chance to win huge lump sum of money; and then when they win prizes, they go missing.

Florida’s largest unclaimed ticket expired after 180-day deadline with no one coming forward with the ticket to claim an estimated $53.7 million prize. Indiana lottery’s unclaimed $2.5 million jackpot was finally claimed after six months. Illinois lottery’s $20 million Mega Million jackpot winner has not yet come forward.

Returning unclaimed money has been a recent concern for most U.S. State treasuries. All the state treasurer offices in U.S. are busy these days in not only doing their core tasks but also caretaking and returning of $32.877 billion of U.S. unclaimed money.

Unclaimed money has resulted from dormant savings accounts, idle stocks, uncashed dividends or payroll checks, forgotten traveler’s checks and trust distributions, unredeemed money orders or gift certificates, unclaimed insurance payments or refunds of life insurance policies, lost certificates of deposit, uncollected utility security deposits and unclaimed lottery jackpots.

Relentless Efforts by the States

California, one of the largest states in U.S., is currently sitting over more than $5.7 billion in the form of unclaimed property belonging to approximately 11.6 million individuals and organizations. This unclaimed cash is a part of over $ 32 billion unclaimed cash and property held by various states of U.S.

The state of California has enacted Unclaimed Property Law that requires property holders such as corporations, business associations, financial institutions and insurance companies to annually report and return dormant property to the State Controller’s Office.

Unprecedented Efforts

Michigan State is taking to returning of unclaimed money on war footing. The Michigan State Treasurer is the administrator of the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act that came into existence on Mar 28, 1996. Since then, the state has left no stone unturned to handover the unclaimed property to the rightful owner. This act concerning unclaimed property provides for the reporting and disposition of unclaimed property, held by any agency or holder.

If you hold any unclaimed property in your name, then the Unclaimed Property Division of the Michigan Department of Treasury is the place where you could get to know about it. Understanding this, a large number of Michigan citizens are coming forward to claim unclaimed money.

Unclaimed money has been a cause of concern for all U.S. states. All fifty states and other federal agencies are jointly sitting on over $32 billion of unclaimed cash and property from over 117 million accounts, waiting for the rightful owners to turn up. Though unclaimed money has existed for a while, its immense pile up in recent years has raised alarm with the authorities. The last decade, especially the last five years has seen fervent efforts from the authorities to reduce the burden by returning the unclaimed cash to its owners.

Maryland Comptroller’s office has released a 144 page list containing 60,000 names of identified owners with a worth of $42 million in unclaimed cash. This massive reserve comprises of security deposits, insurance benefits, bank accounts, wages and even valuable contents of safe deposit boxes.

The deputy director of communications, Christine Feldmann of Maryland said their office had obtained more than 1340 calls for unclaimed property. It was estimated during this time that more than 400 people had their unclaimed fund recovered.