The Missouri Treasurer’s Office and the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations have teamed up to help return Unclaimed Property to Missourians who have applied for unemployment benefits. During a press conference today, State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick says his office has been cross-referencing Labor Department data with the Unclaimed Property database.
Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick (Photos courtesy of the Treasurer’s Office)
“In the past week, we’ve sent out almost 90,000 emails to Missourians who are likely holders or owners of unclaimed property and who have also filed for unemployment benefits,” says Fitzpatrick. “And in just this past week that we’ve been doing this, we’ve processed almost 2,300 claims to Missourians totaling more than $186,000.”
Fitzpatrick says when the coronavirus started to have an impact on the state’s economy, a light bulb went off in his office’s head. He says his office has been working on setting up this partnership ever since.
“It’s not a secret – there’s a lot of people struggling across this state. And so, what this does is it can be a bit of relief for those individuals. Some of them are going to receive thousands of dollars that could be coming at a really critical time in their lives,” says Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick says 1 in 10 Missourians has unclaimed property and the average return is $300. The office gets about 1,000 safe deposit boxes sent to his office annually. He says the vast majority of the unclaimed property involves financial assets.
“We anticipate the number of Missourians that we’re going to be able to contact is likely in the hundreds of thousands and we’ll probably be returning upwards of tens of millions of dollars to those individuals,” says Fitzpatrick.
Those who receive outreach in the form of a postcard, email, or phone call are required to submit a claim for their unclaimed property. The Treasurer’s Office does not charge to return unclaimed property. Missourians can search and claim online at ShowMeMoney.com.
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