Can’t find your cash? SC Treasurer doesn’t list almost $70 million in unclaimed funds
The South Carolina Treasurer’s Department is sitting on almost a billion dollars in unclaimed money belonging to South Carolina residents. It comes from old insurance policies, forgotten bank accounts, unreturned utility deposits, uncashed checks and undelivered refunds.
Some of it might be yours, but are South Carolina officials doing everything they can to get that money to its rightful owners?
While $370 million has been returned to South Carolinians through this program over the 14-year tenure of Treasurer Curtis Loftis, key shortcomings might be hindering South Carolinians from recovering all of their funds.
While some states have pioneered programs to automatically return money to residents, South Carolina requires residents to search for their own funds. The state’s system also doesn’t readily show all money available to residents because the Treasurer’s Office website does not display individual assets under $50.
That means someone could have several sets of unclaimed assets, all under $50, and they wouldn’t know by checking the state treasurer’s website.
In all, $69,349,746 in unclaimed assets under $50 are not displayed in the Treasurer’s publicly accessible system.
South Carolina’s Unclaimed Property Law, which governs the return of these funds, requires the Treasurer’s Office to report the name, beneficiary and original source of all unclaimed property of $50 or more.
The money is there and available to be claimed, said a spokesperson for the Treasurer’s Office, telling The State “if someone calls our office or initiates a claim on our website, our system automatically searches and adds any other properties that may be due to them, including those valued under $50.”
But, that would require someone to know to reach out. A South Carolina resident who only had unclaimed properties under $50 would see nothing displayed on the website.
The South Carolina Treasurer’s Office did not respond to inquiries about the total value of all items under $50.
The Michigan Treasurer’s Office similarly does not display items under $50. In Michigan, there are more than 17.6 million unclaimed sets of assets under $50 with a total value of $189.6 million that are not being disclosed to its rightful owners, according to reporting from Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit news outlet. That’s almost 10% of the roughly $2 billion in unclaimed property collected by the Michigan Treasurer’s Office, according to the Bridge.
If the same percentage applies in South Carolina, the state government would be holding on to nearly $100 million in unclaimed assets worth less than $50 each — assets that their owners cannot identify online.
But keeping this money can benefit states over citizens, said Allen Mayer, the chief of staff for the Illinois Treasurer’s Office and a national expert on unclaimed property.
While treasurer’s offices need to have enough on hand to make payments to anyone who inquires about their unclaimed property, the offices can also lend some of it for state budgets.
Last year in South Carolina, the Treasurer’s Office transferred $15 million in unclaimed property to the state general fund.
“It is important to note that funds reported as unclaimed property always remain available for claim by the rightful owner or the owner’s heirs,” said treasurer’s office spokesperson Karen Ingram.
How do other Treasurer’s automatically return unclaimed money?
Rather than waiting for residents to reach out, some states have started automatically returning unclaimed property to its rightful owners.
But it’s not a step that the South Carolina treasurer’s office takes.
When asked, a spokesperson for the office said that in order to fulfill its “fiduciary responsibility to ensure any funds returned are given to the rightful owner… the Treasurer’s Office carefully reviews each claim received before releasing the funds.”
Some other states, including North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin and Rhode Island, crossmatch an array of personal information held by different state agencies with the information provided by the original holders of the unclaimed property to automatically return money.
The results, they say, speak for themselves.
“I would recommend this program to anyone,” said North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell.
North Carolina’s NCCashMatch automatically screens and returns unclaimed property up to $5,000 and has successfully returned roughly $100 million, Folwell said.
In building this system, which he said was the brainchild of state employees, the treasurer’s office grew the program gradually with an emphasis on security and accuracy.
“It was sort of like a spigot. When they figured out the hose wasn’t going to leak we were able to run more water through it,” Folwell told The State.
But Implementing these programs is not simple. It’s a multi-year process that often requires changing state laws so that agencies can share data with each other, establishing secure channels for private information to be communicated between agencies as well as layers of filters to ensure that the money is going to the right place.
But automatically returning money is “intended to combat the scourge of lucrative silence,” Mayer said.
In Illinois, the treasurer’s office worked with the state legislature to change the law in 2017 and again in 2022 to make data from the state Department of Revenue and voter rolls available to match against unclaimed property. The Illinois treasurer’s office is also working with the state Department of Transportation to use information from driver’s licenses to match data.
But, if done right, the result should be relatively seamless for state residents, said Mayer.
In Illinois, residents who have unclaimed property receive a letter in the mail letting them know that they have unclaimed funds. Once the resident replies to the letter and the Treasurer’s Office completes a few final verifications, a check is sent to the resident.
Last year, $300 million was returned to residents through the Enhanced Money Match program, Mayer said.
Returning money is not a Democratic or a Republican issue, according to Mayer. It’s just a “right thing to do.”
To check to see if you have unclaimed funds with the South Carolina Treasurer’s Office you can visit their website at https://southcarolina.findyourunclaimedproperty.com/app/claim-search, or to check on amounts under $50 you can call the Treasurer’s Office at 803-734-2101.
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 5:30 AM.