Florida Treasure Hunt - Search for Unclaimed Money

The Florida Treasure Hunt helps Floridians locate lost and unclaimed money.  Anybody can conduct a free internet search for missing cash at the Treasurer's website.

Currently, the Chief Financial Officer of Florida holds unclaimed property accounts valued at more than $1 billion, mostly from dormant accounts in financial institutions, insurance and utility companies, securities and trust holdings. In addition to money and securities, unclaimed property includes tangible property such as watches, jewelry, coins, currency, stamps, historical items and other miscellaneous articles from abandoned safe deposit boxes. Unclaimed money is deposited into the state school fund, where it is used for public education. There is, however, no statute of limitations, and citizens have the right to claim their property any time at no cost.

If you have questions regarding how the FL treasure hunt works, you can reference the state's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page...  Where you can find how long the process takes?  What forms are required? and What happens if you moved out-of-state?

It's also important to note that you can search on the website to see if any deceased/dead relatives have any unclaimed assets that may rightfully become the property of their estate (and eventually you).

Florida's Unclaimed Asset Auction--This month

Channel #2 in Orlando did a nice story on The State of Florida's Unclaimed Assets auction that is taking place in September.

The state is auctioning off lots of property--including a gold bar from a ship wreck, a large $100,000 diamond ring and many other items. The state then sits on the cash until the owners (or their heirs or estates) contacts the Treasurer's office, fills out the paper work and gets issued the cash-value that was raised during the bidding.

You can do easy online searches to see if FL or any other state holds money, jewelery or other assets that belong to you.

Florida's Treasurer Sink Helps People find Unclaimed Assets

Florida's CFO Alex Sink explains that in 2009 the sunshine state gave back more than $200 million in unclaimed money to the rightful owners (which was another state record)... This year, the bureau has received record amounts---More than $350 million added representing over 1.3 million accounts.

During Sink's term more than $600 million has been returned by the Florida unclaimed property bureau. The pan-handle has recently received special attention; by sending out over 6,000 post-cards in an active outreach program.

Florida's unclaimed property auction will be at the Florida Hotel at the Florida Mall in Orland later this year on Friday the twentieth. The public can view the items before the auction and include jewelery, watches and coins.

Treasurer Sink wants people to search fltreasurehunt.org and people should try and search under all names (including aliases, maiden names, and deceased family member names).

Best of luck finding your moolah at Florida's online search tool

Florida Treasure Hunt helps people find Unclaimed Funds

The Fort Myers News Press reports that the State of Florida's Chief Financial Officer has recently been on mission to return missing money and assets to Florida's residents.

Thousands of safety deposit boxes go unclaimed every year---and those assets end up with the state for safe keeping while the state tries to locate the owner (or waiting for the owner to contact the state.)

Fortunately, it's easy to search and find your unclaimed assets and missing money (or your family's), you can just do a Florida Treasure Hunt or use one over several web search tools to see if you're owed cash.

Florida Returns $174 million in unclaimed money in 2008-2009 FY

Click on Image for a bigger chart

According to the state of Florida, almost $300 million of unclaimed money was turned over to the state treasurer during the 2008 - 2009 fiscal year and almost $175 million was turned over their respective owners---and since 300,000 claims were successfully filed, that means that the average successful claim was worth $1,000!

Over the last 6 fiscal years, Florida has on average collected $150 million more than it has given out in its "missing Money" campaign---All of this extra money is figuratively "kept in trust", but in actuality is used to help fund the state's educational programs. So if Grandma had an unknown bank account for $50,000 that was turned over to the state in 2005, the state used that money once the bank turned it over to the state---but if Grandma's heirs discover the missing cash, and file a claim---the state will gladly issue them a check.

Florida's Bureau of Unclaimed Property

The State of Florida's Chief Financial Officer oversees the Department of Financial Services including the state's Bureau of Unclaimed property which allows Floridians and others search the state's database.

As of 2009, there was more than $1 billion of unclaimed money in Florda--mostly from dorman accounts in financial institutions, insurance companies, utility companies and securities (stocks & bonds) and trust holdings. Additionally, there is some tangible property such as jewelry, coins, currency, stamps and other items from abandoned safe deposit boxes.

Florida deposits these assets into the state school fund to help the public education projects---however, there is no statute of limitations in the Sunshine state and citizens can claim their property at any time at no cost.