The pile of unclaimed money holed up with the government and state treasuries is growing at a rapid pace. Unclaimed money pile is major source of concern for state treasuries as well as federal agencies. The growth of unclaimed funds across all the state treasuries has been exponential to say the least.
While the larger states were already grappling with the onslaught of unclaimed funds, even the smaller states and financial organizations like banks and insurance companies are also reporting large volumes of abandoned and unclaimed funds. Larger states, like New York and California, are facing the challenge of locating the owners of huge unclaimed money chunks; $10 billion and $6 billion respectively. A recent Press Release is about half a million dollars in unclaimed money from former Washington Mutual Bank customers in Wisconsin is waiting to be claimed.
NAUPA (National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators) has recently revealed that the combined values of unclaimed funds holed up with states and federal government has already touched the $40 billion mark. It is estimated that almost 8 out of 9 American families have somebody who have lost some money at some point of time, and this money is still to be claimed.
Unable to tackle the problem of unclaimed funds growth, most of the larger states have already embraced a combination of online, print media and electronic media awareness program to reach out to as many people as possible. These programs are meant to spread the awareness about the unclaimed funds and also the process of claim.
The outreach program of the state along with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers, has managed to spread widespread awareness about the state government’s unclaimed funds initiative. Most of the state treasuries and federal authorities are trying their best to tackle the increasing volume of unclaimed money through unclosed bank accounts, returned tax refund, unremitted pension funds, and other types of personal assets. In spite of all the best efforts of all these agencies and governments, the pile of unclaimed funds continues grow larger with every passing quarter.
