Show me the money

The 12 Lotto winners who never claimed their prizes account forjust part ofour €600m in ‘abandoned’ cash, writes John Hearne

IT’S hard to believe, but Irish people have forgotten about or lost track of more than €600m between dormant accounts, unclaimed insurance funds, prizes and receipts over the last decade.

Since they first started keeping tabs on dormant accounts in 2003, banks, building societies and post offices have designated more than €523m as abandoned. The total value of unclaimed insurance policies since then comes to €68m. Twelve Lotto winners have failed to come forward and collect combined jackpots of over €11m over the last 20 years, including a €3.4m winner in 2001.

The Prize Bond Company says that more than 18,000 unclaimed prizes totalling €1.9m are currently waiting for their rightful owners to show up. In Dublin Bus, an average of €1.9m worth of change receipts is left unclaimed every year. The good news is that with the exception of the Lotto cash, all of this money can be reclaimed at any time.

Back in 2003, when the government realised just how much money was lying dormant in the country’s financial institutions, they passed legislation to facilitate the transfer of these funds to the exchequer. Today, all banks are required to designate accounts that have seen no activity in 15 years as ‘dormant’. They then have to make reasonable effort to contact the holders of these accounts. If no owner emerges, this money then goes to the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

Since the fund was established in 2003, no less than €591m has been transferred to the agency from banks, post offices and insurance companies. Each year, the NTMA does a sweep of the financial institutions, hoovering up dormant money. Last year, they collected €43m. But don’t worry. If you suddenly remember the two hundred grand you stashed in your deposit account 16 years ago, that money is still yours. All dormant funds can be reclaimed at any time, or the account simply reactivated, so long as you can prove the money’s yours.

Since the dormant account legislation was passed, almost €231m has been returned to its rightful owners. But the pile of unclaimed cash keeps getting higher. While €43m flowed into the fund last year, only €23m was reclaimed.

Reclaiming dormant money is straight-forward. Before a bank decides an account is dormant, they’ll try to get in touch; that’s unless the account has less than €100 in it, in which case they won’t bother. But if you think you might have an old account knocking around and you figure the €23.42 is as good in your pocket as with the NTMA, just get in touch with the institution and they should facilitate you. If the branch or institution no longer exists, go see the bankers federation (www.ibf.ie).

Note, too, that there are circumstances in which the bank will decide that the account is dormant before that 15-year period is up: if statements have been returned marked ‘gone away’ or ‘not at this address’. To reclaim dormant money, either on your own behalf or on behalf of someone on whose funds you believe you have a legal claim, you need a Dormant Account Claim Form — available from all financial institutions. All claims, the IBF says, are investigated fully. If your claim is rejected, you can appeal through the credit institution’s complaints procedures, and if they still say the money’s not yours, you can go to the financial services ombudsman.

Like the banks, the insurance companies are also required by law to try and get in touch with the owners of unclaimed life insurance policies. If the policy has a specified term, it’s considered dormant if the customer hasn’t been in contact with the company for five years after the policy matures. And if the policy doesn’t have a specified term, it’s dormant if there’s been no communication between the company and the customer for 15 years. As with dormant bank accounts, there’s no time-bar. If the money is yours, the money is yours, no matter when you show up.

While money in bank accounts and matured life assurance funds may sit indefinitely awaiting your attention, you only get 90 days to collect Lotto winnings. Somebody out there had the single winning ticket to the draw held on Jun 30 2001, a ticket whose value went from €3,445,223.50 to zero overnight on September 27 that year. The National Lottery says that unclaimed winnings generally average about 2% of sales, which on 2010 figures comes to about €15.4m. Remember, too, that Lotto tickets are a bearer instrument, like cash. No ticket, no winnings. The National Lottery says that this cash goes to make extra-big prize pots that are offered periodically by the company — such as St Patrick’s weekend.

Since prize bonds began in 1957, over 18,000 prizes have been left unclaimed, including a €20,000 prize won in 2004. If your numbers come up, the Prize Bond Company will send notification to the address at which the prize bond is registered. If you’re no longer at that address, there’s every chance that the notification won’t ever find you.

A spokesman for the company explained that for the higher value prizes, they’ll send out notification, along with a form you fill in to claim your prize. If the form doesn’t come back within three months, they send out another, and if there’s no response to that, they send out another three months after that. But all of these notifications go to the same address, so if the first one didn’t get to you, chances are the second and third won’t either. The money remains yours indefinitely, however. To see if you hold a winning prize bond, check it out on prizebonds.ie.

Dublin Bus won’t give you change on the bus if you don’t have the correct money. Instead, the company offers what it says is the only change reclaim facility run by a European bus service. But the €1.9m on average left unclaimed every year is testament to the inconvenience of the system. Who’s going to trek in to Dublin Bus Head Office to reclaim 55c? Change receipts never expire, however; once you’ve built up enough, it may be worth it to make that claim.

Finally, it’s not really a source of cash, but the value of unclaimed gift vouchers has been mounting slowly for years. Estimates put the size of the voucher industry in Ireland at €350m. According to a Grant Thornton report on gift cards, the annual rate of ‘breakage’, which is basically the number of retail vouchers that expire unclaimed each year, varies between 10% and 19%. Which means that each year, us consumers hand back at least €35m in unclaimed vouchers to the retail sector. Time to dig out those vouchers and make use of them.

And if you have any ‘old’ money lying around, now’s your time to cash that in, too, because we are still swapping old tender for the euro at a rate of £10,000 per working day.

The Central Bank received lodgements worth £2,050,722 (€2.6m) last year — but an astonishing £236m is still out there under mattresses, down couches, or squirrelled away in drawers. So, go forage!