Finance & Money
How state unclaimed property databases work
The databases are real, free and run by state treasurers. The industry around them is where the problems are.
When a bank account, insurance payout, utility deposit or final paycheck goes unclaimed for a set period, state law generally requires the holder to hand it to the state, which keeps it indefinitely until somebody claims it. Each state runs its own searchable database of what it is holding.
Searching is free and takes a few minutes. The official starting point is the association of state unclaimed property administrators, which links every state's own site; searching each state you have lived in is more thorough than any single national search.
Most searches find nothing, and that is the ordinary outcome. Where something is found, the claim process asks for identity documents and proof of the connection to the old address or account, and the state pays it out directly.
Finder services will offer to do this for a percentage. They are searching the same free public database you can search, and several states cap what a finder may charge precisely because of how often this is sold as a discovery rather than a lookup.
What to do next. Search your state treasurer's official unclaimed property site yourself, and each state you have previously lived in, before paying anyone a percentage.
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