NAUPA Says Millions Of Americans Have Hundreds Of Dollars In Unclaimed Assets

The National Association of Unclaimed Property advised citizens on how to go about claiming their property.

Certain state treasurers across the U.S. proclaimed Feb. 1 Unclaimed Property Day and revealed that American citizens may collectively be sitting on millions of dollars in unclaimed cash or property assets.

According to CNN, “Over 30 million people in the United States have unclaimed property that they have either forgotten about or never knew was theirs.” The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a department of the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST), explained that such money could exist in the form of unused rebate cards, uncashed checks, inactive bank accounts, inheritances, dividend checks, or even life insurance policy payouts.

Illinois State Treasurer and NAST President Michael W. Frerichs said there are “any number of reasons” someone may not know about their own unclaimed assets, and cited the NAUPA’s state-by-state database as an easy way to search for unclaimed assets that you may have.

NAUPA explained that U.S. citizens should first use the site by checking for any unclaimed property under their name in states where they’ve lived, and then check the results against the nationwide NAUPA database.

While each state chooses how transparent it is in saying how much unclaimed properties are worth, it’s still worth investigating. Most American states have no statute of limitations on property claims.

NAUPA outlined a few scenarios that may have resulted in unclaimed assets. For example, “If you’ve moved a lot, you may have checks that were sent to old addresses and never forwarded. You may have old bank accounts from years ago that you never closed and have forgotten about. You may be entitled to a payout from someone’s life insurance policy or estate and … weren’t notified about it.”