The inflow of unclaimed funds in state treasuries continues to come in thick and fast and the according to the last estimate almost $40 billion was piled up in various state treasuries across the nation. This roughly translates to almost 30 million Americans missing out on some unclaimed funds or property. With every passing month, billions of unclaimed funds are being added to the state treasuries and states like New York and California have this added burden of managing this growing pile of unclaimed funds.
Even the smaller states are now reporting the heavy influx of unclaimed funds. Some of the most common sources of unclaimed funds in the state treasuries are: abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed savings and checking accounts, child support payments, uncashed dividends, stocks, customer deposits or over payments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, matured life insurance policies, uncashed death benefit checks, and the contents of safety deposit boxes.
State treasuries, which can be considered the richest in terms of unclaimed funds in the U.S. are New York with $10.5 billion, California with almost $6 billion, and Texas with $2 billion. According to a new report, the problem of unclaimed funds is not only limited to the federal and the state governments. It has been disclosed that the burden of unclaimed funds is also weighing heavier on the Local government.
Local governments have reported to have piled almost $23 billion of unclaimed funds; out of which only $1 billion was claimed back by the actual owners. 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.
In a concerted drive to whittle down the growing pile of unclaimed funds, nearly all of the state treasuries and federal agencies have created outreach programs and community awareness events which not only educate the residents about their possible missing funds, but also offer an avenue for filing a claim on-the-spot. State treasuries have launched informative websites for unclaimed fund seekers. These websites not only provide the most current information regarding unclaimed funds policies, but also lets the claimants fill up online claim forms.
