2011 Proves No Increase In Unclaimed Money Claims

By Author: Nicole Anderson
Total Articles: 82
Comment this article

2011 was expected to be a great year for retuning unclaimed money. With the amount of effort and resources being put towards the awareness programs of unclaimed money, it was expected that 2011 will witness a greater volume of claims for the unclaimed money, but the statistics have proven otherwise. Published reports and government reports have repeatedly been mentioning the rapid growth of unclaimed money pile but the fact remains that billions of dollars worth of IRS unclaimed money and unclaimed property still lies in the various state treasuries around the country. Almost all of the state and federal agencies are unanimous in their verdict that the pile of U.S. unclaimed money is growing rapidly with each passing day and there is no practical solution in sight.

The alarming pace at which the federal and State unclaimed databases are swelling with unclaimed funds is a major concern for authorities, with new money being added monthly. Higher populated states have much larger problems to face, with California reporting almost $6 billion of unclaimed funds, and New ...
... York’s pile swelling up to $10 billion. It is a fact that all the states are taking proactive and revolutionary steps to reunite the owners of these lost funds, but the overall volume of claims in 2011 has not seen that kind of improvement.

Non-governmental institutions are also experiencing a deluge of unclaimed funds; these include insurance companies and Banks. Some of the most popular banks are also disclosing a large number of unclaimed bank balances, which has been growing rapidly.

Washington Mutual, in Wisconsin, recently issued a Press Release stating that almost half a million dollars of unclaimed funds are waiting to be claimed by the rightful owner. “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 belonging to Wisconsin customers. The state treasurer's office says one account has more than $58,000 in it.”

State treasuries and federal authorities are getting all the tactical and logistical support from NAUPA (National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators) in creating practical awareness programs for unclaimed money search. There is no question that the awareness level in the general public has increased as compared to earlier, but the poignant fact remains that this pile of lost money is increasing with each passing day.

There are myriad reasons as to the source of these unclaimed money, but some of the major one that contribute towards this pile. Increased mobility on the professional and residential front has resulted in a lot of relinquished and unaccounted financial accounts across all types of organizations: utility bills, bank accounts, Tax refunds, pension funds and other kinds of personal assets.

In a statistical survey, it was estimated that almost 93% of the families in the U.S. have some type of fund or property that is yet to be claimed. That explains the fact that almost $40 billion are being held up in various state and federal treasuries and might reach the $100 billion mark very soon. In fact, the rapidly growing volume of these unclaimed funds is becoming a major bureaucratic and logistical hazard for most of the state treasuries.