Kanawha, Cabell, Harrison top unclaimed property

State Treasurer John Perdue’s Unclaimed Property Division has released county-by-county paid claims for fiscal 2016, showing Kanawha once again at the top with $2.5 million paid to its residents.
Here are the top 10 counties for claims paid out of the state’s unclaimed property fund.
•    Kanawha — 1,124 claims, $2.5 million
•    Cabell — 323 claims, $683,846
•    Harrison — 300 claims, $476,129
•    Monongalia — 391 claims, $403,582
•    Wood — 303 claims, $375,235
•    Fayette — 150 claims, $326,928
•    Berkeley — 389 claims, $240,678
•    Marion — 197 claims, $211,100
•    Hampshire — 53 claims, $192,098
•    Ohio — 196 claims, $191,771
Unclaimed property is any asset from which an individual has become unintentionally separated. For instance, an individual making a deposit with a utility company may forget he has done that and leave it behind. By law, that money does not belong to the utility and should be turned over to the state’s unclaimed property fund.
From there, the state Treasury does its best to find the assets’ rightful owner, through the use of a constantly updated electronic database; through field representatives who track down missing money; and a twice-a-year newspaper insert, typically featuring some 13,000 previously unpublished names.
Kanawha is perennially at the top of the list. It is the state’s largest county at 191,000 residents.
The four-county area of Harrison, Monongalia, Marion and Taylor counties recorded claims of $1.2 million in fiscal 2016, the first time that area of the state had exceeded $1 million.
The total county-by-county figure is $8.2 million, which is noticeably less than the overall fiscal 2016 total of $13.8 million, due to payments made to one-time state residents who now live elsewhere. The website www.missingmoney.com is particularly useful for finding out-of-state accounts.
Clay County had 37 claims, with at total of $27,689.23.