What is Unclaimed Money?
Unclaimed money is also referred to as unclaimed property and unclaimed funds, are personal assets that, for a variety of reasons, have become separated from their owners.
UnclaimedMoney.org is your free source for information on the tens of billions of money and property being held today in state and federal unclaimed accounts. By clicking on the “Search Your State” link you can freely search your state data base for unclaimed funds. If you want to learn more about the subject matter of unclaimed property in general and require a more comprehensive search strategy, Check out our “What is Unclaimed Money” section. Here are some basic tips:
1. Search for Everyone – family (living and non-living), friends, and names of businesses.
2. Search for maiden names and common misspellings of your name.
3. Aside from state data bases – there is over $16 billion sitting in federal coffers waiting to be found. Remember those savings bonds you got when your were young ? Do you know where they are?
In total there’s well over $70 billion awaiting claim in both state and federal data bases!
Some examples of missing money may include:
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- Stocks
- Insurance policies
- Un-cashed money orders
- Forgotten about accounts
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A good portion of all unclaimed money is held by individual states. New York, for instance, now holds over $14 billion in unclaimed money in roughly as many as 23 million accounts. Pennsylvania has $1.5 billion and New Jersey holds at least $1 billion as well. Smaller states such as Maine list lesser amounts – $131 million in 42,000 accounts.
The collection, management, and efforts to find rightful property owners is a business in and of itself. In general a state collects more money than they return to rightful property owners through the course of one fiscal year. It takes a significant bureaucracy to enforce laws that govern the collection of unclaimed money and to devise and implement strategies to find rightful property owners. In New York as well as other states boast that the amount of money returned is expanding. For example, in 2008 NY returned $194 million to property owners – a $25 million increase over money returned in 2007. Unclaimed funds is a win win situation for all involved and there’s money to be had for those on both sides, you just have to know where to look. This site is dedicated to helping you find missing funds.
MissingMoney.com is a good resource for searching for most states.