Find Your Lost Funds - Savings Bonds (Detroit Free Press)

October 6, 2011


Susan Tompor: Billions in savings bonds sit uncollected

BY SUSAN TOMPOR
DETROIT FREE PRESS PERSONAL FINANCE COLUMNIST

Who couldn't use an extra $500 or $1,000 or more?

So why is $16.2 billion just sitting there uncollected in the form of U.S. savings bonds?

Maybe an uncle or aunt bought a savings bond for you a long time ago and you never saw it. Maybe someone died.

The federal government doesn't usually send notices informing you that you did not cash a bond that stopped earning interest 20 years ago.

About 45 million U.S. savings bonds do nothing but collect dust. That's if they're shoved aside in a shoe box and haven't been thrown out.

Never think you could lose anything as valuable as a savings bond? You put everything important in a secure spot? Think again.

"In my house, that 'safe' place has changed three or four times in the last 20 years," said Daniel Pederson, who has a Web site called www.bondhelper.com and is author of the book "Savings Bonds: When to Hold, When to Fold."

Pederson, a Monroe-based expert on bonds who has held seminars that help bond owners avoid costly mistakes, says he knows he's missing a few bonds, too.

"I have two I bought for my son. I don't know where I have them right now."

I know what he means. I've been writing about savings bonds for much of my career and was shocked this summer to discover that I lost more than a dozen of them.

What's lost under your mattress?

Hunt for those savings bonds

One tough part about losing your parents is that sometimes you're forced to tie up loose ends. For many families, like mine, that means looking for lost U.S. savings bonds.

My parents, maybe like yours, bought paper savings bonds through payroll deduction and for special occasions.

During parts of the 1980s, savvy savers actually rushed to buy U.S. savings bonds -- I am not kidding -- to lock in high interest rates. My mother nudged me to buy savings bonds back then, too, when I was in my first job.

Since Mom was my go-to gal for advice, I took my checkbook to the bank and bought those bonds. I wasn't the only one.

Somewhere out there, Americans are looking at more than 665 million savings bonds valued at more than $180 billion. Most are still earning interest.

But about 45 million of those bonds worth $16.2 billion are likely missing and no longer earning any interest. They need to be cashed if they can be found.

But Daniel Pederson, a Michigan-based expert who runs www.bondhelper.com, said many people cannot find their bonds. Think of all the people who moved while in the military; switched jobs in their careers; stored stuff in someone else's attic.

Pederson said he thinks he may have lost a few bonds after he took some bonds to talks he gave to groups. After my father died several years ago, I inherited the chore of tracking Mom and Dad's savings bonds. A lifetime of accumulating bonds meant I had figure out which bonds would mature when and drive Mom to the bank to cash some bonds each year. Mom's memory was fading, but her bonds had a life of their own. Sadly, I miss our crazy little trips to the bank.

But after Mom died, we had to ask: Did we have all her bonds?

Everyone should ask that question. "The toughest part is just getting started," Pederson said.

First stop: The Treasury Department Web site: www.treasuryhunt.gov .

You enter your Social Security number and if you've got a bond in the Treasury Hunt database, you'd receive an e-mail alert.

But the e-mail does not tell how many bonds you're missing or what they're worth. You're prompted to submit contact information.

The Bureau of Public Debt said a little over 1% of the 3 million searches conducted online this year resulted in people sending back contact information. Publicity on ABC's "Good Morning America" this summer generated more searches than usual.

Michigan resident Catherine Townsend searched the Treasury Hunt after seeing a segment on TV, but she didn't find a bond for herself. She searched for her husband and found a bond he bought when he first started working at General Motors in the mid-1970s.

"He probably forgot he even had it," she said. "Anybody can go online and try to see what they have."

After filing out the proper paperwork, the couple received a little more than $100.

The key is taking the next step. "Some people don't follow up," said Lateefah Thompson, public affairs specialist for the Bureau of Public Debt. What can be confusing is that Treasury Hunt will not find every bond. You need to do more work to find really old bonds -- or some relatively newer ones.

The online system finds Series E bonds issued in 1974 and after. It only identifies bonds in that group that are not earning interest. The best way to find out about all possible lost or stolen bonds is to contact the Treasury, Thompson said, and submit Form PD F 1048, a six-page form with instructions. Of course, sometimes tearing up your house works, too. Remember those bonds Mom urged me to buy in the mid-1980s?

I thought I had them all -- they won't stop earning interest until 2015 and 2016. But somehow, my sister found a stack of my bonds in my parents' cedar chest when she looked for other paperwork.

I moved a bit in the '80s. Did I give the bonds to my parents for safekeeping?

By filing the form 1048, we discovered an unredeemed 1952 bond that we had no clue about. That bond cost $18.75 originally and is now worth $170.66. It stopped paying interest in 1992. Maybe, my parents lost that bond when they moved from my grandmother's house to their first and only home?

In all, the Treasury search found a dozen bonds that belong to my sister, other family members and me. Three unredeemed bonds bought in the 1970s stopped earning interest in 2005 and 2007. Overall, the dozen discovered bonds are worth about $10,000 before taxes. Now, we've got more paperwork. Many are still earning interest, so all would not have been found with just Treasury Hunt.

The young man at the Bureau of Public Debt who is looking at this mess called me one day and told me three times that I should not be intimidated by all the forms he would send me. He sent a very detailed letter on what to do next. I begged my husband to look at the forms -- and this guy's roadmap.

One "lost" bond in the mix is a Series I inflation-indexed savings bond I had bought my son when he was little.

My son, with an eye on high school and college, said: "Well, you better find that bond."

Contact Susan Tompor: 313-222-8876 or stompor@freepress.com

Insurance Companies Sued for Knowingly Stiffing Heirs ( from LifeHealthPro )

Prudential, MetLife Sued over Death Master File

By Arthur D. Postal

February 1, 2012

State efforts to collect on unclaimed property held by insurers has mushroomed into private action lawsuits filed in Illinois, Ohio and New York against Prudential and MetLife.

The lawsuits are coming to light against the background of a hearing Thursday on inaccuracies related to the Death Master File mainted by the Social Security Administration.

The DMF is the primary research tool being used to allege that insurers did not follow applicable state law on unclaimed property, either by not being aggressive enough in seeking to find beneficiaries of life insurance policies, or, in the alternative, turn the money over to the state.

In a suit filed in Chicago, Total Asset Recovery Services, based in Auburn Hills, Mich., alleges it discovered a "massive fraud" by Metropolitan Life Insurance and Prudential Financial.

The suit alleges that the two firms kept more than $524 million in unclaimed life insurance money that should have been turned over to Illinois.

And, a class action suit alleging securities fraud was filed in Manhattan Jan. 12 against Metlife by the City of Westland Police and Fire Retirement System, Westland, Mich.

The suit alleges MetLife made “false and misleading statements” regarding its financial statements because it took a charge in the third quarter of 2011 related to a determination that it owed money by either not paying off policies to proper beneficiaries or turned the money over to the appropriate states under escheat laws.

And, an Ohio state court based in Cleveland Tuesday dismissed a complaint against Nationwide Insurance Company in which a life insurance policyholder who is 71 years-old filed suit.

The plaintiff said he filed suit out of concern that his death is imminent and he is fearful that because Nationwide allegedly “has failed and continue to fail to make reasonable attempts to determine when the beneficiaries of a life insurance policy are entitled to death benefits.”

The plaintiffs fear … “that as their deaths are impending they fear that that their life insurance policies will not be honored.”

The suit asked that Nationwide be required to make at least annual DMF searches for insureds with more than a 70% chance of having died.

The court dismissed the suit, on the grounds that (a) plaintiffs lacked standing because their alleged injury was too speculative and (b) the duty plaintiffs sought to impose was foreclosed by the terms of their policies.

The plaintiffs have appealed to the Ohio Court of Appeals.

The Illinois case was filed almost a year ago but only unsealed earlier this month.

It is a so-called “qui tam,” or whistleblower complaint in Cook County Court.

The suit said MetLife and Prudential "filed false records omitting these unclaimed funds."

It says the insurers should be fined more than $1.5 billion under the Illinois False Claims Whistleblower Reward and Protection Act.

Tom Prescott, equity-owner and spokesperson for Total Asset Recovery Services LLC, said that with regard to the suit, the Illinois attorney-general’s office has said that it will soon submit for the court's consideration a motion to intervene and simultaneously dismiss the suit because it is negotiating a settlement with MetLife and Pru.

Prescott complained that it is likely that Illinois will settle “for pennies on the dollar.”

He said that, “We think this is incredulous and unfair to the citizens of Illinois compared with what they should receive given the companies' documented fraudulent activities in this area) after having utilized our data findings and supporting documentation to extract the relevant monetary and policy concessions.”

Finding Lost Assets: Treasure Hunt (bankrate.com)

5 tips for finding unclaimed property
By Sonya Stinson • Bankrate.com



Where to find lost loot
Are you thinking that you could sure use that electric company security deposit you left behind the last time you moved? Or, maybe you found a safe-deposit box key in the bottom of a drawer but don't have the vaguest recollection of where the box might be and what's in it.

There may still be a way for you to get your hands on those assets.

For just about every category of unclaimed property, there is a government lost-and-found department. You can usually search for and retrieve your missing property for free by going directly to the agency responsible for its safekeeping. Based on a review of several government agency websites, the process typically involves looking for your name on a list, completing a claim form, having it notarized and presenting some type of documentation proving you are the rightful owner of the assets.

Here are five examples of the kind of lost loot that might turn up when you start searching.


Property is held in state repositories

All U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia have programs that help owners of unclaimed property find those assets. According to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, there is at least $32.8 billion worth of unclaimed property in state custody.

The list includes checking and savings accounts, stocks, insurance payments, annuities, utility security deposits, mineral royalty payments and a host of other things you may have forgotten you owned or didn't know were worth anything. Besides assets that come directly from financial accounts, state-held property also may include proceeds from the sale of stocks and bonds, or from safe-deposit box contents sold at auction when it became impractical to store them.

The NAUPA website has links to every state's department in charge of unclaimed property. It also links to MissingMoney.com, a national website in which most states participate.

"If you've moved around a lot, that may be convenient, instead of checking several different states," says NAUPA President John Gabriel. "But if you've pretty much been in one or two states only, it's easier to go directly to those states -- especially if your name is common -- so you don't have to filter through a bunch of (unrelated) stuff."


Find unredeemed savings bonds
If you own or have inherited a matured U.S. savings bond that you never got around to cashing, you may be able to redeem it by going to Treasury Hunt, the U.S. Treasury Department's searchable database.

The Treasury is currently holding about $16.4 billion in matured, unredeemed U.S. savings bonds, says Joyce Harris, director of public and legislative affairs for the department's Bureau of the Public Debt.

Only Series E bonds issued in 1974 and after are included in the database. If you are the heir to the original owner of the bond, you'll need to supply the owner's Social Security number and legal documentation of your relationship to that person to get the unclaimed property. For other types of bonds, Harris says you can fill out a form from the website and mail it in.


Finding accounts from shuttered banks
If you had an account with a bank or savings and loan that was closed by a regulatory agency between January 1989 and June 28, 1993, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. may have some money with your name on it. Unclaimed insured deposits are available for as long as the institution is still under FDIC receivership. You may claim a dividend check for an uninsured portion of a deposit after that period if the U.S. Postal Service returned the check as undeliverable. Here's where to find out if you're on the FDIC's unclaimed funds list.

"In the mid '90s, there was a change in the law, (which is) why our database goes only until June 28, 1993," says FDIC spokesman David Barr. "Now, when a bank fails, any unclaimed funds on hand 18 months after the closing are returned to the FDIC, (which) then turns them over to the individual state unclaimed property bureaus."

The National Credit Union Administration's Asset Management and Assistance Center in Austin, Texas, is in charge of paying out members' share accounts whenever a federally insured credit union is liquidated. You can access a list of unclaimed deposits online.


Get your tax refund
Say your income tax refund check got lost in the mail or was returned as undeliverable because you moved. To find out how to get your unclaimed tax refund back, use the IRS search tool that's aptly named Where's My Refund?

You can file a claim to replace a lost, stolen or destroyed refund check once after 28 days have passed since the IRS mailed the check. You may also be able to change your address online to get an undeliverable check resent.

To get information about your refund, you'll have to plug in your Social Security number, filing status and the amount of refund due.

You may also be wondering about a state tax refund. In many states, unclaimed state tax refunds are handled by that state's department of revenue.

The database will only contain information from your most recent tax return. Your chance to claim an old undeliverable refund check expires once you have filed a return for the current tax year, according to the IRS.


Find old pension benefits
If you had a pension plan with a company that went out of business and you haven't heard anything about what happened to your unclaimed benefits, check the missing participants' listing of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

The PBGC is a federal corporation created to insure private employers' defined-benefit plans. Its database does not include profit-sharing and 401(k) plans.

For 401(k)s, profit-sharing plans and IRAs, you might check the website of the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits, which offers free searches of its database.

The payoff for your search could come in the form of an annuity that your former employer bought from a private insurance firm -- money the company deposited in a bank or benefits that PBGC pays you if the company transferred its pension funds to the agency when it closed, according to the PBGC website. You may also file a claim if you are the survivor of the worker who was entitled to the benefits.


Sonya Stinson is a freelance writer from New Orleans.
Posted: Dec. 28, 2010

Treasure Hunt: Finding Your Unclaimed Property (from WSJ)

APRIL 28, 2011.
How to Find Unclaimed Property: From 'Tracers' to Websites, Many Ways to Snare Money .
By VERONICA DAGHER

If you feel you may be due unclaimed property, or just want to find out, there are several ways to hunt it down.

Some people discover that they have unclaimed funds only after a finder or "tracer" notifies them they have unclaimed
property and offers to help them retrieve it for a fee, says
Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of financial-aid website FinAid.org.
He also runs the free site www.unclaimedproperty.

.Unclaimed life-insurance proceeds have come into the spotlight as regulators are looking into whether insurers are turning over these funds to states in a timely fashion.

How quickly companies need to hand over these funds varies by state, and the total amount of unclaimed funds is in the billions.

New York alone has received roughly $400,287,736 in unclaimed life insurance policies since 2000, says Vanessa Lockel, a spokeswoman for the Office of the State Comptroller. She says the state has refunded about $64,772,228.

Here are some ways to claim your money:

• More Than Insurance: Life-insurance proceeds are just one type of unclaimed property. Other examples could include a refund check from a utility company, stock dividend checks that have been going to a stale address or proceeds from the estate of a relative who died without a will and whose estate took several years to be settled in court.

• How to Start: Mr. Kantrowitz recommends people begin their search at www.missingmoney.com, a free database operated by ACS Unclaimed Property Clearinghouse, which is owned by Xerox Corp. and provides unclaimed property support services to state governments.

The site searches unclaimed property websites of several states where users can search by last and first name to find funds. If no unclaimed funds show up, Mr.
Kantrowitz says, a searcher should individually check the databases
of any of the states they have lived in.

He recommends that they conduct a new search every year, because it sometimes takes a few years for states to post records of missing funds.

• Filing for Funds: Once someone discovers they have missing funds, they can file a claim with their state's unclaimed property office.

If the money is in someone else's name, they will likely have to provide proof they are the beneficiary, such as a copy of the deceased's will, Mr. Kantrowitz says.

Other places to look include Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which has a database for unclaimed pension benefits, and the Internal Revenue Service, which may be holding unclaimed income tax refund money.

If you suspect that you missed a refund, contact the IRS directly.

• Tax Watch: Speaking of taxes, anyone counting on a windfall from unclaimed property should keep in mind that they may have to fork part of it over. If you find and receive the proceeds of long-lost stock which a state has liquidated, for instance, you may face a tax bill.

Write to Veronica Dagher at veronica.dagher@dowjones.com