Colorado Moves To Cut Red Tape From Unclaimed Money Process

(CBS4) - The Colorado Treasurer's office has sent out 128 checks to citizens who have unclaimed money with the state, but unlike the previous process, the 128 people did not have to fill out any claim forms or provide any notarized documents.

"Well I think people felt the process was pretty onerous," said Treasurer Dave Young.

He said the pilot program involves sending checks for less than $100 with the claimants not needing to fill out any paperwork. Young said if the program is successful, his office will look at sending out larger checks to people with unclaimed money with those people not needing to file paperwork.

"Those things that work and make sense," said Young, "we should be exploring them."

Other states already send checks out to citizens with unclaimed cash without requiring a registration process, so Colorado is tentatively following that lead.
The state said since the unclaimed property program began decades ago, it has returned more than a half billion dollars in unclaimed property and cash.

LINK: colorado.findyourunclaimedproperty.com

It's typically various refunds, checks, dividends, stocks and bonds that people lose track of and the items end up with the state. But Young concedes that many people who had small amounts of money with the state dropped their claims because the process of retrieving their money was so laden with red tape.

Young says if 80% of the 128 checks that were sent out are cashed, his office will consider the pilot program a success and will look at expanding the streamlined process to larger amounts.