STATE TREASURE IN CLARK COUNTY
Thursday, November 29th, 2007 -- 11:53 AM
A state official was at the Clark County Courthouse in Neillsville Wednesday, trying to connect people with their unclaimed property.Dawn Marie Sass says the state is currently holding around $500,000 of property that actually belongs to Clark County residents.
"Unclaimed property is anything from a forgotten paycheck to a utility refund, rebates, we have a lot of insurance policies," Sass says. "When the insurance companies demutalized, there were a lot of life insurance policies that were bought on children. Now those children have grown up and moved six, seven, eight times. Gotten married."
Sass is visiting every county in the state this year. She brings along a computer database of the nearly one million names owed something. People simply come in, give a name and a search is conducted.
It's a bit like the Antiques Roadshow. People often give their name just for the heck of it and sometimes hit the jackpot.
"We were at the State Fair, a guy stopped because his wife said he should stop," Sass remembers. The man was skeptical, saying he'd never forgot about anything money-related. "Sure enough, he had like $1,000 coming in a life insurance policy."
"So I said, 'you need to buy your wife a nice present'."
There was a line outside their conference room door when they arrived Wednesday and they've had some success tracking people down.
Meanwhile, the around $300-million in unclaimed assets gains interest for the state and the contents of safety deposit boxes?if unclaimed for three years or more?are auctioned on Ebay. The latest auction started Wednesday.
You can search for unclaimed property by visiting the state [url=http://www.ost.state.wi.us/home/UCPWeb/ucpsearch.aspx]website[/url].
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