Posts Tagged “unclaimed funds in florida”

Dec 01 2008

Florida Unclaimed Money Totals Over $1 Billion

Posted by: Russ Johnson in Government, Missing Money, Unclaimed Insurance Policies, Unclaimed Money

Have you ever loaned money to a friend, and because they were a friend, you didn’t press them to pay your cash back quickly? Then, as time went on, did you forget all about the money? Well, maybe you haven’t, but millions of Floridians do every year, only their “friends” are companies holding dormant bank accounts, uncashed payroll checks, stocks, dividends, just to name a few.

After the companies lose contact with people associated with these accounts, they turn over these funds to the state Department of Financial Services, and the funds, totally hundreds of millions each year, become what is known as unclaimed money or unclaimed property. The state never actually “owns” Florida unclaimed money, but they are obligated to hold it until the rightful owner steps forward to claim it.

The task of turning that missing money in to found money is easy if you know what you’re doing. Many people make the mistake of simply performing a onetime search at some third party side that made false claims about its unclaimed property database. Others only search Florida’s unclaimed funds records. On top of that, one of the biggest mistakes people make time and time again, is only searching once.

Searching only once doesn’t take in to account that in accordance with varying dormancy periods on forgotten money, these assets are turned over at different times. Meaning that if you search for unclaimed money in Florida only today, but your funds haven’t been turned over to the state until tomorrow (or next week, month, or year), you’d never find it. For this reason (among others), searchers should steer clear of sites that charge “per search”.

Many people hunting for FL unclaimed funds simply don’t realize that their money might be in the hands of government offices in other states. What if your insurance companies or corporate headquarters of a former employer were in other states? When the dormancy periods end, your unclaimed gov money will be turned over to those states, so searching Florida missing money records would be pointless.

Although Florida’s $1 billion is a lot, searching the records of other states frequently is particularly important in The Sunshine State, because the state houses so many transplants. It’s no secret that Florida is the place to be if you’re a retiree, but most didn’t live there for their entire lives.

Despite the fact that Florida does you the courtesy of not putting any time limits on claiming your funds, most people would obviously prefer to have their money sooner rather than later. Additionally, if the cash belonged to a passed relative, the process of proving you’re the rightful heir can take a bit more effort than claiming your own lost money, so it’s important to get started ASAP.

Most people think it’s not possible for them to have ever abandoned or forgotten money, but you’d be surprised. The reality is that the majority of people are owed some type of unclaimed money, so everyone owes it to themselves to search.