In 1880, Canadian Prospector Joe Juneau brought about the gold rush era by discovering gold in Alaska. America’s chilliest state is also home to the largest oil field on the continent of North America and its main source of revenue is the oil and natural gas industry. There is another source of wealth that the majority of residents of America’s Last Frontier have not yet discovered- Alaska unclaimed money and property. Alaska has the lowest population density in the entire nation – meaning life is not really that hectic or busy compared to the country’s more packed cities like New York. It’s strange, then, that according to an article by Fairbanks’ The News-Miner, tens of thousands of residents of Alaska have unclaimed property waiting for them in the state capital of Juneau.
People and businesses sometimes lose track of their properties while changing names, addresses, or closing shop and just plain forgetting. Unclaimed money comes from lost assets like uncashed checks, long-dormant bank accounts, income tax refunds, insurance policies, forgotten stocks and stock dividends, and other financial assets. The Alaska Unclaimed Property Act requires the establishments holding these to hand them over to the state if their owners can not be found after a certain period of inactivity. This ‘dormancy period’ in Alaska is one year for utilities, 5 for stock shares and checking and savings accounts, 7 years for non-bank money orders and fifteen years for traveler’s checks. The only tangible assets covered under the act are safe deposit box contents.
There are more than 300 thousand accounts of Alaskan unclaimed properties in the state listings and 12 thousand more items are added to this list annually. Everyone should do a missing money search because it’s very surprising who’s name pops up on the list of owners of unclaimed property. The Russian Airline company Aeroflot, Hawaiian Airlines, China Airlines, the Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, even KIAK radio and KTVF-TV have claimable assets waiting for them in Alaska. Even government entities are owed abandoned money! Local governments and school districts in Kenai, Barrow, Anchorage and Juneau are among the names listed in over a dozen unclaimed property accounts. The names of former State Governor Tony Knowles, his wife Susa, former Gov. Steve Cowper, former Gov. Bill Sheffield, former Lt. Gov. Lowell Thomas Jr., are also listed as being owed money. These people are public officials, easy to track down and they have not yet discovered their unclaimed property being held by the state.
According to the Alaska Unclaimed Funds Division of the Governor’s office in a recent statement, “The Unclaimed Property (UCP) staff conducts searches for property owners by selecting recently reported properties from the division’s database and using online tools to locate the owners. The target is to search for 50 owners each month, however when there are fluctuations in staffing and/or workload the UCP places a priority on responding to claims requests from property owners which involves verifying claims and processing payments.” In light of this, it would be in the best interests of all residents of Alaska to take some initiative, perform an internet search for unclaimed property and find out if they are owed money by the state. The wild Forget-Me-Not is Alaska’s official state flower, and residents would definitely not want to forget about their cash being held by the Treasurer either.
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