Nevada Unclaimed Money Now Totals Over 200 Million

As of September, NV's state treasurer, Kate Marshall confirmed that the state of Nevada is currently holding over $200 million in Nevada unclaimed money that belongs to the 700,000 citizens. And despite recent efforts, after much criticism in 2006, the Nevada unclaimed property program continues to take in more money than it returns.

According the Marshall, the state has increased its unclaimed money returns to 350-700 claims per week. That's nothing to sneeze at, and Nevada's state treasurer is to be commended, but when you consider that at that rate it would take 20-40 years before they'd ever return all claims currently listed, it's nothing to get too excited about, especially when you consider how much more additional money would come in over those 20-40 years!!!

The bottom line is that people can't rely on the Nevada to reunite them with their funds. The citizens have to take action themselves, if they ever want to be sure they're searching thoroughly and exploring all possible sources of NV unclaimed property. The state has no doubt stepped up their efforts, but there's a long way to go, and I think we can all agree that we the people are far more efficient than any government agency will ever be.

The following are the most common types of unclaimed property in Nevada: Stocks, Checking/Savings Accounts, Death Benefits, Vendor Checks, Over-Payments, Certificates of Deposits, Paid-in-full Life Insurance, Uncashed Checks, Unpaid Wages, Money Orders, Credit Balances, Refunds, Dividends, Commissions, Insurance Payments, Gift Certificates, Customer Deposits. If you or anyone you know have ever had any of these, you owe it to yourself to learn the proper way to search for missing money.

Each of the different types of unclaimed cash sources listed above has it's own unique dormancy period. This is the amount of time that must pass before the abandoned money is considered "unclaimed" and turned over to the state. Depending on the type of fund, the dormancy period can be anywhere from 1 to 15 years. This is important to know, because traditional online searches won't show a record unless the dormancy period has passed, and the state has taken control of your money.

Beyond the fact that the dormancy period has to pass before there will be any sort of online record of your money, there's also the matter of how often Nevada updates their unclaimed money listing. Records are not updated daily, so you can be confident in your search if you look and don't find anything one day, and the state just happens to not add your record until the next day, week, month, or year. This is why rule #1 of searching for missing money is to search frequently.

Additionally not all money belonging to Nevada citizens is in the state of Nevada. Some people may have lived in other states before moving to Nevada, while others may have had dealings with out of state entities, even if they didn't know it. For example, many companies have locations in a number of different states, but they are headquartered in just one state. The same goes for insurance carriers. Even if a company has locations in 20 states, including Nevada, if the company they use for employee insurance benefits is located in some other state, Nevada would never have a record of that money.

In addition to the issues raised above, there are countless problems that people often run in to when searching for unclaimed money in Nevada, which make it all the more important you get expert assistance in tracking down your money.