Did you lose something?

Each year, millions of dollars in accounts at financial institutions and companies is declared “abandoned” because there has been no contact with the owner for one year or longer. Common types of unclaimed property include: savings and checking accounts; safe deposit box contents; and stock shares, dividends and mutual funds.

Each state has its own unclaimed property laws that protect your funds from reverting back to the company if you have lost contact with them. Instead, companies must turn forgotten funds over to state officials.

Unclaimed funds from the federal government—such as IRS refunds, unclaimed savings bonds and unclaimed insured pension distributions—are not handed over to the states but are held by each individual federal agency.

How can you find out if you have property that you may have forgotten about or that is considered “abandoned?”

The Web sites listed below allow you to search for unclaimed property. Two Web sites allow you to search for abandoned property held by individual states. Also listed are several Web sites that provide information on reclaiming lost assets from certain federal government agencies.

State-Held Abadnoned Property

National Association of Unclaimed PropertyAdministrators (NAUPA)
www.naupa.org
NAUPA is the association of state unclaimed property programs. This Web site provides links to each state’s individual database.

MissingMoney.com
www.missingmoney.com
MissingMoney.com is a national database, established by NAUPA, which enables owners to perform a comprehensive search for lost assets turned over to the states. Note, however, that not all states participate, and some states do not list all of the records in their custody.

Federally Held Abandoned Property

FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
www2.fdic.gov/funds/index.asp
The FDIC provides deposit insurance to financial institutions and depositors. The Consumer portion of FDIC’s Web site contains a link to “Search for Unclaimed Funds” (found under Consumer Resources) allowing you to search for insured deposits at financial institutions that were closed by a regulatory agency between January 1, 1989, and June 28, 1993.

National Taxpayers Union
www.ntu.org/main/components/current_irs/
Income tax refund checks that are undeliverable are returned to the IRS. This section of the National Taxpayers Union allows you to search to see whether the IRS has an unclaimed check for you.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
www.pbgc.gov/MissingParticipant/missingParticipantSearch.jsp
The PBGC insures defined-benefit pension plans. When a company’s pension plan is terminated and transferred to PBGC, some plan participants are unable to be located. You can search this portion of the Web site to see if you are a “missing participant.”

Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for Federal Employees
www.tsp.gov/lostpar
The Thrift Savings Plan is the defined-benefit pension plan for federal employees. This portion of the Web site contains a list with the name and last employing agency of participants whom it has been unable to locate.

U.S. Treasury’s Treasury Hunt
www.publicdebt.treas.gov/sav/sbtdhunt.htm
Records on undeliverable savings bonds since 1996 can be searched on-line. Also includes information on H/HH interest and legacy Treasury Direct payments you haven’t received.

National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)
www.ncua.gov/AssetMgmtCent/unclaimed/unclaimed.html
When a credit union with federal insurance is liquidated, the NCUA is responsible for paying the share accounts to the members. You can search for unclaimed accounts here.

Abadnoned Property General Information

UnclaimedProperty.info
www.unclaimedproperty.info
A Web site devoted to links and information on finding property that has been listed as abandoned.