Did you know that there’s over $41 billion in unclaimed money from the government? That’s a lot of money just sitting there doing nothing. Unclaimed money is any type of financial asset that has been left unclaimed by its rightful owner for certain a period of time. This can include things like bank accounts, mutual fund investments, insurance payouts, and even uncashed checks. There are billions of dollars in unclaimed money from the government that belongs to someone. We know that when you’re living with a cancer diagnosis every penny counts. And if there’s money floating out there that belongs to you, it’s time to go get it. In this blog post, we’re going to show you five places to search for unclaimed money from the government that may be rightfully yours.
1. Search for Unclaimed Money in Your State
https://www.missingmoney.com/en/
The first place to start your search for unclaimed money is in your own state. There are a couple of different websites that you can use to search for unclaimed money, but we recommend using Unclaimed.org and MissingMoney.com. These are both reputable websites that are run by state treasurers’ offices. Simply enter your name and state into the search bar on either website and see if there’s any unclaimed money that belongs to you.
2. Search for Past Wages
The Department of Labor has a database called the “Wage and Hour Division Worked But Not Paid System” (WHD WBNS) that contains information on over $1 billion in unpaid wages. To see if you’re owed any unpaid wages, simply enter your name and contact information into the database. If there are any unpaid wages that belong to you, the Department of Labor will help you get in touch with your former employer so that you can get paid what you’re owed.
3. Search for Unclaimed Pensions
https://www.pbgc.gov/about/pg/contact/contact-unclaimed
If you or a family member has ever worked for a company that offered pensions, there’s a good chance that some of those pension benefits have gone unclaimed. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a government agency that protects pension benefits for over 44 million Americans. If you think you may be owed unclaimed pension benefits, you can contact the PBGC at 1-800-400-7242 or online at using the link above.
4. Search for Unclaimed VA Life Insurance
https://insurance.va.gov/UnclaimedFunds
If you or a family member is a veteran of the United States armed forces, there’s a good chance that there is some unclaimed life insurance money owed to you by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA provides life insurance coverage to over 6 million veterans and their families, and there is over $120 million in unclaimed benefits owed to policyholders who are unaware that they have coverage or who have forgotten about their policies altogether. To see if you’re owed any unclaimed life insurance benefits, simply enter your name into the VA’s Unpaid Claims Database above.
5. Search Unclaimed Bankruptcy Funds
This one may come as a surprise, but there’s actually over $1 billion in unclaimed bankruptcy funds sitting in the United States Treasury right now! This money consists of undistributed funds from bankruptcy cases where there is no known address for the debtor (the person who filed for bankruptcy). To see if any of this money belongs to you, simply enter your name into the online database above. If any undistributed funds from bankruptcy cases match your name, they will be listed in the database along with instructions on how to claim them.
It’s Worth the Search
Unclaimed money is any type of financial asset that has been left inactive by its owner for a period of time. This can include savings accounts, checking accounts, uncashed paychecks, utility deposits, and more. In most cases, unclaimed money is turned over to the state after a certain amount of time has passed (usually three to five years). There are so many unclaimed accounts, and that translates into billions of dollars in unclaimed money from the government just sitting out there waiting to be claimed by its rightful owners—that could be YOU! Agencies make it easy to search for missing money online; take a few minutes to do it. You never know what’s waiting there for you!
Wrapping Up
In this blog post, we showed you how to find five different types of unclaimed money funds from the government: state-level unclaimed property databases, past wages owing to you from former employers, forgotten pension benefits, unpaid Veterans Affairs life insurance policies, and undistributed bankruptcy funds. If you believe you may have some unclaimed money, it is worth taking the time to search for it. With a little effort, you may be able to retrieve assets that you didn’t even know were missing. Thanks for reading and we hope this helped shed some light on how to find missing money that rightly belongs to YOU!
More Help
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer, more national nonprofit programs can help at no cost to you. Visit this post for 32+Free Financial Assistance Programs for Cancer Patients and get the help you need today. ❤️
