(Part 1 of 2)

It is not a secret that the Rocky Mountains run straight through Wyoming, but there's an even more interesting mountain, of more immediate interest to the less half of a million residents of the Equality State – a mountain of money! As it stands now, the State Treasury Office holds over $26 million in Wyoming unclaimed money, and waiting for the actual owners to step forward and take what technically already belongs to them.

The State Treasury site names the following as the most common types of property that can become "unclaimed": savings accounts, deposits, refunds, customer overpayments, insurance policies, endowments, and annuities, checking accounts, credit balances, uncashed dividends, moneys distributable from trusts, uncashed insurance claim payments, safe deposit box contents, stocks, money orders, traveler's checks. Each of these types of unclaimed funds has its own dormancy period, which is the number of years that must go by before they are considered abandoned and law requires that they're turned over to the state. These dormancy periods differ greatly, but are usually 5 years in WY.

Even though WY has given back millions of dollars to the rightful owners, the vast majority remains unclaimed, and the main reasons boil down to a lack of education about these assets. Luckily, WY is a custodial state, which means they hold these monies forever, and won't ever take possession of them. There is no expiration date on lost cash.

(to be continued)

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Time runs out on Citizens insurance rebates
$10.85 million of assessments paid in 2007 unclaimed at end of 2011

Mass. treasurer says unclaimed monetary property is available
For local municipalities, it’s the equivalent of finding money in the pocket of a forgotten pair of pants. State Treasurer Steven Grossman announced Thursday that his office’s Unclaimed Property Division returned nearly $425,000 in unclaimed monetary property owned by 124 cities and towns, including most of the communities in the Fall River area.

State gives owners of unclaimed property a chance to retrieve it
Hundreds of folks with unclaimed money – old bank accounts, overlooked stock shares, forgotten refunds – are getting a chance to retrieve it without going through state government.