Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs is urging nearly 140,000 residents to cash their unclaimed property checks that are being mailed out.
These checks are part of the latest round of the Enhanced Money Match program, which enables the Treasurer’s Office to automatically return unclaimed funds to individuals without requiring them to file a claim. The office utilizes existing state data and cross-references it with the unclaimed property database. Recently, letters were sent to property owners detailing the amounts and sources of the funds they are set to receive.
Since the program’s inception in 2018, the Illinois Treasurer’s Office has successfully returned over $102 million to nearly 422,000 individuals through the Enhanced Money Match initiative. This latest round of nearly 140,000 letters represents the largest Money Match effort ever conducted in the nation.
The Enhanced Money Match program is designed to address straightforward claims: cash owed to individual persons. It does not cover funds owned by multiple parties, such as joint accounts between a parent and child, nor does it include stocks and bonds, escrow accounts, or items in bank safe deposit boxes.
This initiative is part of the Unclaimed Property program, known as I-CASH, which is one of the state’s oldest consumer protection programs. The Illinois State Treasurer is responsible for safeguarding unclaimed property, which includes overlooked safe deposit boxes, unpaid life insurance benefits, forgotten bank accounts, and unused rebate cards. Illinois currently holds over $5 billion in unclaimed property, with more than $2 billion returned since Frerichs took office—the highest amount in state history. The state treasurer is legally obligated to return unclaimed property to its rightful owners or heirs, regardless of the time it takes.
To find out if you have any unclaimed property, visit the online database at www.illinoistreasurer.gov/ICASH.
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