There are many reasons you might have unclaimed funds (abandoned accounts, uncashed checks, misspelled names, incorrect addresses, misplaced inheritance and trusts, etc), and your state is required to hold your property until you claim it.
They will not seek you out, and most people are completely unaware they may have lost funds or property being held by the state.
Every state has an official (.gov) website where you can check whether you have unclaimed property and submit a claim. Just search ‘[my state] unclaimed property’.
e: make sure you go to the official state website; I just noticed some state search top results aren’t the official (.gov) website.
e2: also, check every state you’ve lived in. Moving state is one of the major reasons this happens, and your unclaimed funds will not move to a new state with you.
e3: if you find unclaimed funds, please comment! I’m fascinated to know, no matter how large or small.
In my line of work, it’s a legal thing and a balancing the books thing. The business can’t legally keep the money because it is being held in trust for that particular person, and only that person is allowed to get those funds (unless they die, then it becomes part of their estate). We can’t just wait a certain number of years and say ha! you didn’t get your funds in time, and now they’re mine!
While we have the funds in trust, the case isn’t fully closed as far as our accounting department is concerned. Accounting doesn’t want uncashed checks out there and doesn’t like the idea of holding onto client funds indefinitely because they have to keep track of all of that, and we’ve had something like 40,000 clients in the last 30-40 years. Their goal is to get that account down to zero so there are no funds for that client left in their account.
At a certain point, if we can’t hunt that person down, we have to get this money off our books. Otherwise, if it was legally allowed, we could be stuck holding these funds for decades and having to manage them that whole time. In my particular state, businesses legally have to submit it as unclaimed property after 5 years. The goal was to have all these funds in one location so people don’t have to search at a bunch of different places to find unclaimed funds. Really, it’s a benefit to both the business and the people searching for their funds. We get to clear it off the books, and they have a one-stop shop for receiving any unclaimed funds. It sounds like different types of funds have different waiting periods. I believe the department of revenue also makes efforts to find the owner of those funds.
Lots of different businesses use this system. Say you have a savings account out there somewhere that you completely forgot about, so it’s been sitting there with no activity for years. Since then, maybe you’ve moved or gotten a new phone number. If the bank sends you letters and emails and calls you but still can’t get in contact after 5 years, they are going to close the account and send those funds to the state. It could be submitted by an insurance company who has settlement funds or reimbursement funds for ending a policy. It could be that you overpaid on something, and the business is trying to return the difference to you, but can’t find you. Basically, if some business owes you money in any way, but can’t for some reason get it to you, they have to submit it to the state. I’m assuming it works the same if the next of kin can’t be found for an estate.
I’m not sure how the business to business funds would work, but businesses here are required to have a registered agent who is responsible for receiving subpoenas or whatever else for the business, so hunting down the owner seems like it’s a bit easier, but I’ve never worked on that side, so I don’t really know.