The Illinois State Treasurer’s Office returned nearly $47 million in missing money during November, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs announced.
The total includes more than $45.9 million in cash and interest and more than $1 million in stock value. All told, 81,906 claims were paid in November.
“Returning missing money is even more special during the holiday season,” Frerichs said. “Putting money into people’s hands will help them during the holidays and make the season a little brighter.”
Illinois’ missing money program— also known as I-CASH — is one of the state’s oldest consumer protection initiatives. The State Treasurer is tasked with safeguarding unclaimed property, such as the contents of overlooked safe deposit boxes, unpaid life insurance benefits, forgotten bank accounts and unused rebate cards. Illinois holds more than $5 billion in unclaimed property.
When Frerichs first became state treasurer, there were 60,000 claims paid in a year. Today, more than 300,000 claims are paid each year.
So far this year, the Treasurer’s Office has returned $267 million through more than 305,600 claims.
Frerichs completely restructured the missing money process. The State Treasurer’s Office has added electronic claims, eliminated red-tape that slowed small-money claims, and leveraged technology to allow payments to be made without a claim even needing to be filed.
In recent months, the State Treasurer’s Office has mailed letters to more than 140,000 people through the Enhanced Money Match program, which leverages data already collected by the state and crossmatches it with the treasurer’s unclaimed property database. When a matching name and mailing address is identified and confirmed, the unclaimed property owner will receive a letter from the State Treasurer’s Office that describes the amount and source of the money. The State Treasurer’s Office conducts one additional security step before authorizing a check. All recipients have to do is watch the mail and cash the check.
Frerichs worked with state lawmakers to raise the limit on the amount of money that can be returned to $5,000. The total to be returned through the two rounds of Enhanced Money Match letters is about $76 million. Frerichs also has added a Friends and Family “share” feature. When visitors to the I-CASH websitecome across the name of someone they know, they can select the “share” icon and provide the email address of their friend or relative. Frerichs’ office then will notify the individual by sending an email that mentions the missing money, along with the name of the friend or relative who spotted it. Then, thatindividual can start the process of retrieving it.
Illinois is a national leader in the unclaimed property space and is frequently consulted by other states who are reforming their unclaimed property laws, rules and procedures.
The State Treasurer’s Office recommends people check for missing money at least twice each year. You can check icash.illinoistreasurer.gov to see if missing money is waiting for you.
