(Part 1 of 2)

As of Sept., NV's state treasurer, Kate Marshall confirmed that the state of NV is currently holding over 200 million dollars in Nevada unclaimed money that is owed to 700,000 residents. And despite recent changes, after a lot of criticism in 2006, the NV unclaimed funds program continues to take in more cash than it returns.

According the Marshall, Nevada has increased its unclaimed funds returns to 350-700 claims per week. That's not anything to sneeze at, and NV's treasury department is to be praised, but when we consider that at that rate it would take twenty to forty years before they could ever return all claims currently listed, it is nothing to get terribly excited about, particularly once you take in to account how much more additional money would come in over those twenty to forty years!!!

This all boils down to the fact that people can't rely on the Nevada to do the legwork in returning their assets. Nevadans need to take matters in to their own hands, if they ever want to be sure that they are searching thoroughly and exploring all possible sources of NV unclaimed funds. The state has without a doubt stepped up their efforts, but there's a long way to go still, and I believe we can all agree that we the people can be far more efficient than any gov agency will ever be.

The most common types of unclaimed funds are as follows in NV: Checking/Savings Accounts, Over-Payments, Vendor Checks, Death Benefits, Stocks, Certificates of Deposits, Paid-in-full Life Insurance, Uncashed Checks, Unpaid Wages, Money Orders, Credit Balances, Refunds, Dividends, Commissions, Insurance Payments, Gift Certificates, Customer Deposits. If you or anyone you know has ever had any of these, you should learn the proper way to track down missing money.

Each of the different types of unclaimed property sources mentioned above has its own individual dormancy period. The dormancy period is the number of years that have to pass before the abandoned property can be considered "unclaimed" and turned over to the state. Depending on the type of asset, the dormancy period may be anywhere from one to fifteen years. This is important to know, because regular internet searches won't list a record unless the dormancy period has gone by, and the state has taken hold of your funds.

(to be continued)

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This week, I'm answering questions from readers, because there's an unclaimed money question that keeps coming up again and again. That tells me there's a need, so here goes. Here are two samples of the questions I've gotten:

The largest pot of