More than $60 billion just waiting to be claimed

by Center for Personal Finance editors

NEW YORK (7/6/06)--With more than $60 billion in unclaimed property and missing money held by government agencies, it pays to check whether you may be entitled to proceeds from a lost dividend check or forgotten certificate of deposit (The Wall Street Journal June 22).

When contact with an asset's owner is lost, the property is abandoned in the eyes of the law. In most cases there's no time limit for filing claims, but some types of assets are subject to a statute of limitations. Reasons for abandoned property and missing money may be quite simple: a name change after marriage or divorce, unreported change of address, incomplete or illegible records, or clerical errors.

Who's holding the money? According to unclaimedassets.com, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has $73 million in unclaimed tax refunds, the Bureau of Public Debt has $9 billion in unclaimed savings bonds, the Social Security Administration has $478 million in unclaimed benefit checks, The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has $500 million in unclaimed mortgage refunds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has $80 million in unclaimed pension benefits, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has $200 million in unclaimed bank account funds.

In addition, millions of family members are unaware that they can collect unclaimed assets owed to deceased relatives who didn't leave behind an updated will or detailed map of where assets were located. More than one-quarter of all life insurance policies go unclaimed when family members don't notify the insurance company that a policyholder has died, and no effort is made to find lost beneficiaries.

Fraudsters know there's no national unclaimed database, so don't be fooled by websites that offer memberships or paid access to unclaimed property databases. Professional asset tracers may demand 35% or more for information on unclaimed assets that you can find and claim yourself.

MissingMoney.com has a free, searchable database of unclaimed property records with links to each state's unclaimed-property program. In addition to a link for missing credit union accounts, there are links for missing savings bonds, veteran benefits, accounts at closed banks, inheritance, pension benefits, railroad retirement funds, and more.