Saturday, Feb. 1 marks the first annual National Unclaimed Property Day, as approximately 10% of Americans have unclaimed property they may not know about, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.
Saturday, Feb. 1 marks the first annual National Unclaimed Property Day, as approximately 10% of Americans have unclaimed property they may not know about, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.
Those that may be impacted include Americans who have checking or savings accounts that haven't been active in three-to-five years.
In these cases, federal regulations require that the bank must hand over the account and the money in it to your state's unclaimed property department.
Each state has an official website where you can search for unclaimed property by entering your name and where you live. If you have unclaimed property, the info will pop up on the website, where users can fill out a form to claim it.
Other items sent to unclaimed property departments include items from abandoned safety deposit boxes and uncashed checks.
There is no cost associated with recovering unclaimed property. If you’d like to see if you have unclaimed property, here are the direct links for the unclaimed property departments in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. For a list of other databases to search for unclaimed money, such as money from employers, unclaimed insurance and investments, click here.
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