Many people don’t know that when a business entity has funds that are undeliverable to the recipient those funds get turned over to the state as unclaimed property. The state is required to hold these funds in a reserve and by law attempt to return the property to its rightful owner. The problem is the rightful owner doesn’t know that the “lost” property/money exists!
Recently, I found the website missingmoney.com that searches every state database easily, quickly and is free. It has quick links to file a claim if you discover you have missing money! In less than a minute I was able to find missing money for myself, Rick, Rick’s brother and my dad! Since I shared this on my Instagram story yesterday I’ve gotten several DM’s of people letting me know they found missing money too! It’s quick and easy so check out the site now to see if there is any money to be claimed for yourself today!
How it works
From the homepage of the website (missingmoney.com) find the box that says “start your search” and under that is a search box. Type in the first and last name of the person you want to search missing funds for. Then hit the large red “search” button. There are several ads on the pages. Just ignore them and try not to let them distract you!
This will take you to another search bar to enter a name, city and state. Enter a first and last name and state (you do not need to enter city). Remember to do several searches on every legal and non legal spelling of your name and every name you have had (maiden, previous marriage, current etc.) as well as all the states you have lived in. I did not have any unclaimed money in KY or MI but had two hits for unclaimed money from a real estate transaction in IL. I ran every combination of my name in every state I have lived (MI, IL, KY).
Once you search your name and state a list of “hits” will show up on the screen. If there are no hits you will receive a message saying so. In this case, I ran a search on my dad who lives in MI. The search resulted in two hits. The first one is the correct spelling of my dads name and correct middle initial as well as an address where he has lived. This is a good hit. The second hit is not for my dad as he has never lived in Roseville, MI. Since the first hit is likely my dad, the next step is to file a claim.
To file a claim (all this is free – the state wants to make it easy to get you your money!) hit the blue CLAIM button next to the hit that is you. This will take you to the state’s department of unclaimed property website.
From here, you will be asked to verify address and some other personal information about yourself including name, address, SSN, address and email address. Once you fill out this information you will be informed to check your email for the next steps. The email arrives within 5 minutes and based on the amount of money and who it is owed from there will be detailed instruction of what is needed to claim your money. For my dad’s claim from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company they have requested to file a claim for the missing money he must send documentation to prove his current address and SSN via sending in the verifying documentation via email and that is it! So take a minute and run a search on yourself to see if you have any missing money from any state you have resided. If you find you DO have missing money ready to be claimed the entire process takes about 5 minutes and as I said before is completely free!
