Unclaimed property statutes classify financial assets as dormant, unclaimed and abandoned when contact with the owner or heir is lost. This often happens due to name changes after marriage or divorce, an unreported change of address or expired postal forwarding order, incomplete or illegible records, and following an untimely death. When owners or rightful heirs fail to claim a forgotten asset over a specified number of years known as the dormancy period, those left holding the abandoned funds: banks, stock brokers, utilities, employers, life insurance companies and government agencies themselves - transfer custody to an unclaimed money trust account in a legal process known as escheat. Here this lost cash awaits your claim. The state of New York currently holds $13 billion in unclaimed cash. California and Texas abandoned property adds $14 billion more. But this isn't just a big state phenomenon. Local governments recently collected $23 billion worth of forgotten money, of which less than $1 billion was reclaimed. The U.S. federal government holds even more, including $17 billion in unredeemed savings bonds, and hundreds of billions of unclaimed dollars in IRS refunds, retirement and Social Security checks that went undelivered or weren't cashed. Millions of family members are totally unaware they’re entitled to collect missing moneys owed deceased relatives, who passed on without leaving an updated will or complete financial records. It's estimated 25% of life insurance policies are never paid, because it's up to heirs to notify the underwriter when a policyholder dies. The same is true for pensions and retirement accounts - little effort is made to find lost beneficiaries and missing heirs. ● You must initiate a search for unclaimed money - holders of unclaimed funds generally will not contact you. |