Modernizing unclaimed property administration through digital intelligence and workflow automation

The world of unclaimed property, also known as abandoned or escheat property, is filled with complexities, representing a unique blend of law, technology, and business processes. Each state in the U.S. has an unclaimed property statute governing the identification of property that has been unclaimed for a period of time. Depending on the type of property, that time period might be anything from one year to 15 years. States use their unclaimed property laws to aggregate unclaimed tangible and intangible property, including bank accounts, insurance contracts and claims, payroll accounts, brokerage accounts, stocks, bonds, real estate, and other items of value. In turn, states audit and impose penalties and interest on entities that have failed to comply with the reporting and escheatment obligations.

Digital intelligence and automation can help. The process of analyzing dormant accounts, reporting lost owners, and escheating remains manually intensive for many holders because it requires significant time and resources, leading many holders to take little or no action. On the state side, unclaimed property has received significant attention of late, including formal calls for state program modernization efforts. Given increased budgets and enhanced internal capabilities, many states have undertaken technology modernization initiatives by adopting unclaimed property technologies to improve their processes. Recently, some states have gone even further, deploying digital intelligence and workflow automation to handle large volumes of holder-dormant account analysis more efficiently. We review four key unclaimed property processes poised for modernization: holder outreach, matching, report processing, escheatment. Building on the pilot projects and program expansions that states have recently undertaken, we explore how increased productivity can lead to tangible returns and potential future use cases for digital intelligence in unclaimed property.