McRae: Unclaimed money is headed your way

By David McRae

The seasons are changing, which means many of us are tucking away the shorts and pulling out our coats and gloves. With that in mind, I’d like you to think for a moment about the excitement that comes when you reach into that winter coat pocket and find a stray bill or two that you forgot about before packing it away last spring. It was always yours, of course, but the discovery sparks joy nonetheless.

That’s similar to what it’s like when you discover you have unclaimed money with the State Treasury. Unclaimed money was yours the whole time, but for one reason or another, you lost touch with it along the way. In some cases, unclaimed money was left in a savings or investment account you forgot to close.

In other cases, it’s from the estate of a long-lost relative – and you are the next of kin. This was the situation one family encountered earlier this year. A veteran had passed away with no children or spouse, leaving three other relatives as his next of kin. The relatives discovered the unclaimed money by searching our website (treasury.ms.gov/search) and completed the claim fully online. The final amount became the largest unclaimed money return our team has made: $1.1 million.

Of course, not everyone’s unclaimed money will amount to an eye-popping, seven-figure sum, but it’s still worth a few clicks of the mouse to claim.

That said, your State Treasury is taking an unprecedented step this Fall to make receiving your unclaimed money as easy as possible. This November, our team will be proactively issuing about 8,000 checks to families with uncashed state-issued checks, such as tax returns, undeposited state paychecks, and similar items. No action is required by you to claim these funds. Your only responsibility is to cash the state-issued check when it arrives in your mailbox.

This money is not the government’s money. It’s your money; we are simply returning it to the rightful owner. So please, cash the check immediately upon receipt; save it, spend it, use it as you may, but whatever you do, don’t let the check expire or you could lose access to these funds.

These 8,000 checks do not come near exhausting the money we have that is waiting to be claimed. As such, I am continuing to urge all Mississippians to check our database for your name and your family members’ names. If you have any questions, please call (601) 359-3600 or email unclaimed@treasury.ms.gov.

Mississippi Treasurer David McRae is the 55th Treasurer for the State of Mississippi. In this role, he helps manage the state’s cash flow, oversees College Savings Mississippi, and has returned more than $100 million in unclaimed money to Mississippians. For more information, visit Treasury.MS.gov.