FRANKFORT – With Kentucky State Treasurer Mark H. Metcalf announcing last month that the Treasury’s Unclaimed Property Division has surpassed $100 million returned to Kentuckians, now is a great time to check to see if you may have some unclaimed property sitting in Frankfort and waiting to be claimed.
“We’re not talking about numbers on a spreadsheet—we’re talking about real money going back to real people,” Treasurer Metcalf said. “Crossing $100 million means helping Kentuckians pay bills, support their families, and invest back into their communities.”
Unclaimed property can be anything from forgotten bank accounts, uncashed checks, insurance proceeds, utility deposits, and other financial assets turned over to the state for safekeeping. The amounts can range from just a couple dollars to thousands, and this list is continually updated, so it’s always a good idea to check the unclaimed property registry, even if you have in the past.
“There is still more money out there with someone’s name on it,” Metcalf said. “If you’ve never checked, now is the time.”
Kentucky’s Unclaimed Property Law requires corporations, businesses, associations, financial institutions, and insurance companies (referred to as “Holders”) to annually report and deliver unclaimed property to the State Treasurer’s Office. Holders identify accounts as unclaimed property when there has been no activity in the account for a specific amount of time, generally three (3) years and attempts to contact the owner fail.
Kentuckians can search for unclaimed property at treasury.ky.gov or MissingMoney.com. Searches are free, secure and easy to complete. If any unclaimed property is found in your name, there is some paperwork you will have to fill out (available from the portal) and you may have to submit verification of identification, address, etc., so be ready to provide those types of documents, either through the Unclaimed Property Division’s online portal, or by submitting through the mail.
Also, be sure to use the links in this article and avoid any other websites that ask for your credit card information, etc. You should not pay anyone any amount of money to tell you how to find unclaimed property. These websites, after receiving your payment, will usually just refer you to the state’s unclaimed property website which is already available for you to search as much and often as you want free of charge.
For a quick idea of how many unclaimed properties are listed for Magoffin County, we searched “Arnett” and set the search area for Salyersville, and came up with more than 250 results (the max amount shown for a search). We did the same search for Howard and got another maxed out 250 results, nearly 200 for Salyer, 150 for Patrick, and 50 for Barnett, so definitely worth a quick search of your name to maybe return some funds back in your pocket!
