Unclaimed Money Rises to Top of State Treasuries Agenda
The increasing pile of unclaimed money across all the state treasuries is a major cause for concern for the government and its associated agencies. The unclaimed money database is adding new entries to its list with every passing day. Larger states, like California and New York, have a larger problem at hand because of the size, population, and cosmopolitan workforce. Every state treasury and federal government is taking aggressive steps to unite the owners of these unclaimed monies with their lost funds.
Apart from the state and federal agencies, private sector financial institutions like banks and insurance companies are also facing this logistic nightmare of unclaimed funds. Many of these institutions are disclosing a disproportionate amount of unclaimed money in their vault. These unclaimed funds are naturally transferred to the government’s enchantment fund after a certain stipulated period of observation.
“The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed the bank in September 2008. The FDIC then deposited about half a million dollars in Wisconsin’s unclaimed property account. The money belongs to customers who had accounts at the bank. There are about 8,300 accounts belong to Wisconsin customers. The state treasurer’s office says one account has more than $58,000 in it.”
An astounding $40 billion in unclaimed cash and property is sitting in the state treasuries and other agencies, according to National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), and this figure is rising exponentially with every passing month. Occurrences of work transfers, residence changes, and migrations across states are happening at a frantic pace, resulting in a lot of unaccounted utility bills, bank accounts, Tax refunds, pension funds, and other kinds of personal assets.
From a financial point of view, this means a lot of unclaimed funds lying with employers and agencies. 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.
In a verifiable survey, it has been disclosed that 8 out of 9 families in the U.S. are the rightful owners of some unclaimed funds, funds that have been lost or which have been abandoned by their earlier generations. It’s no surprise that Oprah Winfrey decided to disburse some of the unclaimed funds during her show.
As the U.S. population gets more migratory and the volume of foreign and inter-state workers increase, the volume of unclaimed funds is expected to rise further. It won’t be a surprise if it touches a $100 billion figure very soon.
The volume of unclaimed money continues to rise and this is a major concern for the state and federal agencies. While every state is reporting huge additions to its unclaimed money vault every month, some of the larger states have reported unbelievable figures of unclaimed money.
While California is reporting unclaimed money to the tune of $5.7 Billion, New York’s pile of unclaimed money has swelled up to $9.9 billion. In normal circumstances, the addition of funds is a great advantage, but with respect to unclaimed funds, it’s a real issue of managing the unknown.
