Unclaimed Money Vault Hits All-Time High
The unclaimed money count continues to climb relentlessly in spite of all the great efforts of state and federal agencies. A whooping $40 billion is lying in the different state treasuries around the country and that translates to roughly 117 million accounts which are still untraced. These unclaimed money pools are lying in the various state treasuries.
As part of the reclaim drive, federal and state governments are assisting people in finding the forgotten cash or property that is legally theirs. In reality, every U.S. state, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands have unclaimed property programs that actively find owners of lost and forgotten assets.
The state coffers are filling every month with unclaimed money but with very little movement on the owner identification front. One example can be cited from the state of Indiana: In 2009, the Indiana Attorney General’s office was successful in returning $42.2 million dollars of unclaimed cash to its rightful owners, but also recovered $44.6 million of forgotten property from various businesses.
In the year 2006, states returned $1.754 billion from 1.929 million accounts to the owners, but this was offset in the fiscal year 2008, when the Department of Revenue’s Unclaimed Property Section recovered lost property worth more than $100 million.
The ratio of incoming unclaimed money to the money being claimed is still disproportionately high. With the help of print and electronic media, the awareness programs have been broadcasted to the remotest corners which has resulted in businesses, financial institutions and individuals coming forward to report forgotten properties.
In the majority of the cases, unclaimed property has been reported because of the migrating workforce or a change of residence after retirement. In the absence of a standard procedure for closing bank accounts and collecting utility deposits, the state residents are the losers in most of the cases. They do not inform the agencies about their new address where checks and balance amounts could be sent. Such undelivered checks and left out balance amounts contribute largely to the unclaimed property.
In a recent disclosure, federal government has reported that almost $16 billion lying in the form of savings bonds have never been cashed. These savings bonds were issued long ago and by now they have matured and no interest is being accrued from it. Now, as per the government’s regulations, these bonds contribute to the unclaimed property. A large chunk of the unclaimed money is also due to the demise of the rightful owners of these funds.
According to a recent survey, almost 89% of U.S. families (almost 8 out of 9) are still missing out on some unclaimed money which is rightfully theirs; that translates to approximately $40 billion of unclaimed money waiting to be reclaimed. It will not be a big surprise if this figure reaches the much feared (by the state and government agencies) $100 billion mark.
