When a family member passes on it can be difficult to move on from grieving to discuss their estate and money that was possibly left behind. Many times relatives have left behind money in an account and it needs to be claimed or it will sit in an account forever. There are many easy ways to find unclaimed money from deceased relatives. It is also essential that if you have money tied up in different places that you leave the information for your relatives or heirs to find and claim. This will make the process of finding the unclaimed funds even easier. Although it can be difficult to go through a loved ones accounts, it is better to have the unclaimed funds with family then sitting in a bank collecting dust.
One of the first tips to locating unclaimed funds actually starts before there is any death that occurs. It starts with making a list of all accounts where you have money stored away. There are a lot of accounts that you have. Start with the obvious ones like checking and savings accounts. You should then look at a variety of different accounts. You should include information if you have any of these accounts: life insurance policies, both ones that you purchased on your own and ones through an employer, stocks, bonds, savings bonds, and retirement funds like 401(k) plans, pensions and IRAs. Keep this information in a safe deposit box or with a family member. It will be much easier to take care of the accounts without too much grief if this information is readily available.
It is fairly easy to find your loved ones unclaimed funds on the Internet. The best website to go to is MissingMoney.com. You can search state by state for unclaimed funds, or you can do an almost nationwide search. Almost every state participates with this website. You can go to Unclaimed.org if the state that your loved one may have funds in does not participate with MissingMoney.com. You should search states that your loved one either resided or worked in. You may even want to check all 50 states because sometimes the unclaimed money is held in the state where a company was based rather than where the person lived.
You can search for unclaimed money that belonged to a loved one by their name by verifying their address. This will usually yield results. You may want to find out what the person’s Social Security number is in order to identify them and claim their money. There are also different terms that you should type into the “last name” box on your search page. This will help you find more specific results when it comes to finding unclaimed money. Here are just some of the terms you will want to use when trying to find a deceased loved ones unclaimed money: Unknown Heir, Trustee, POD, Payable on death, (The) Estate of, and beneficiary. These terms will help bring up many results. You can then scan these results and see if your loved one is on the list.
It is always hard to look through the finances of a loved one who has passed away. It is better to look through and claim any unclaimed funds that they may have had so it can benefit the deceased's family and friends instead of sitting in an account. Take the time to thoroughly search for unclaimed funds to see if any belong to your loved ones.
