Most States Still Experiencing Trouble Returning Unclaimed Money to Public
The unclaimed money pile is still not being returned to the public as per the expectations of the state treasuries. While the pile of money continues to stack up, the states have been facing increasing problems in returning the unclaimed funds to the rightful owners. Most of the states are facing these growing volumes of unclaimed money, and are reporting huge additions to its unclaimed money vault every month.
The larger states, where the workforce diversity and migrations are extremely high, are reporting a much higher volumes of unclaimed money; California is estimating an unclaimed money volume to the tune of $5.7 Billion while New York’s pile of unclaimed money has swelled up to $9.9 billion.
The large pile of unclaimed money in the states are also being swelled by the addition of unclaimed money in the banks and public financial institutions like the insurance companies. These other companies have also been reporting high numbers of unclaimed money balances. In a recent Press Release, about half a million dollars in unclaimed money from former Washington Mutual Bank in Wisconsin is waiting to be claimed.
According to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), almost $40 billion in unclaimed cash and property is sitting in state treasuries and other agencies, and has been lying unaccounted for, for a long period of time. In spite of all the measures taken up by the state, this figure is increasing every year. The federal agencies and higher officials of the state treasuries are working together to tackle unclosed bank accounts, un-returned tax refund, un-remitted pension funds, and other types of personal assets, that have no takers. As the statutory limit is reached for this money and property, it is transferred to the state treasuries where it is marked as unclaimed or abandoned.
The current aggregate figure of $40 billion across the nation in unclaimed property will soon be history. Experts and economists are predicting that very soon we will be starring at $100 billion figure of unclaimed money, which means that almost 90% of U.S. families have somebody who has failed to reclaim their lost funds or assets.
States like California and New York, which have a relatively higher figure of unclaimed funds, are forced to take different route; The governors and the governing body of these states are seriously considering options to utilize the unclaimed funds for state development programs.
New York has also been successfully reuniting the heirs of original property owners who could not be located. The outreach program of the state along with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers has managed to spread widespread awareness about the state government’s unclaimed funds initiative.
