Tips for the Recovery of Lost Money
- You can search online to see if any money in your name is considered "lost" or "abandoned."money money image by Valentin Mosichev from Fotolia.com
State treasuries are holding millions of dollars of lost or unclaimed money. Each state has its own rules regarding the amount of time money can sit in any type of account while showing no activity from the owner. After every avenue of trying to contact the owner has been exhausted, the money is transferred into the state's treasury until it's recovered by its rightful owner or heirs. - Check the state treasury's site online. Lost money can come in the form of an insurance policy, old bank account or any other type of account for which contact information has been lost. Enter your name into the search bar on the unclaimed property list and see what comes up.
- Check the state treasury's site online for the first few years after the death of parents or a spouse. Because the money is not transferred into the state treasury immediately, continue checking at least once a year for the following decade.
Recover the funds by documenting your identity and your relationship to the decedent. The specific documents needed are posted on each state's lost money site. - Check also any states in which you or your beneficiaries might have previously lived. There may have been a bank account opened, bonds purchased, or an insurance policy taken out decades ago that was forgotten or lost.
- Try changing the spelling of the name just a bit. This is especially helpful if you are doing the search with a name that is commonly spelled differently than the way you spell it: for example, "Clarke" instead of "Clark." A spelling variation might explain how the money got lost in the first place. Backup information to check might be date of birth or address. The process for recovering the money differs slightly for each state.
