US Unclaimed Property and Missing Money Search

Under US unclaimed property law, financial assets are considered dormant, unclaimed and abandoned when contact with an owner is lost over an extended period. This often happens after death of the owner, or due to a name change after marriage or divorce, an unreported change of address or expired postal forwarding order, and incomplete or illegible records.

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 others - transfer custody to a government unclaimed property trust account in a process known as escheat. Here it awaits your claim.

New York currently holds $8 billion in unclaimed money, while California unclaimed property totals over $5 billion. Last year alone, states collected $22.8 billion worth of missing money, of which less than $1 billion was claimed. The US federal government holds even more, including $13 billion in unredeemed savings bonds, and hundreds of billions of unclaimed dollars in IRS refunds and Social Security checks that went undelivered or uncashed.

It's important to emphasize millions of family members are unaware they’re entitled to collect missing money owed deceased relatives, who passed on without leaving an updated will or complete financial records. Life insurance policy benefits often go unclaimed, for example, because it's up to heirs to notify the insurance company when a policyholder dies, and virtually no effort is made to find lost beneficiaries.