Electronic method huge for unclaimed property claimants

State Treasurer John Perdue's Unclaimed Property Division got almost 50% of its claims applications electronically in December, a not really surprising trend, while its Fast Track program endeavored to get cash in claimants' hands faster..A total of 363 cases were filed electronically in December, representing 48.3 percent of all claims filed. An electronic case is one in which the claimant goes to www.wvtreasury.com and files online, giving recognizing data without submitting paper documents.E-claims have generally been customized to moderately low dollar amount claims for property with a single owner. More complicated cases regularly include giving paper documentation, for example, wills or business documents.We try to remain on the cutting edge of technology, Perdue said. An e-claim is by far our most popular option for claimants. The claim can be filed from the comfort of their home.Unclaimed property is any financial asset from which an individual has turned out to be inadvertently separated. Examples are forgotten utility deposits, a left-behind definite paycheck and abandoned safe deposit box contentsDifferent wellsprings of unclaimed property claims were owner claims, at 27 percent of cases filed, and claims generated specifically from newspaper inserts at 16.8 percent. Different sources made up the rest.A owner claim is a paper claim filed by the property owner. Regularly the claimant discovers the benefit on the Treasurer's office site, downloads the paper form from the site andphysically sends the document. The claimant may likewise call 1-800-642-8687 to find whether the office is holding his or her property, and after that file a claim. Newspaper advertisements are those cases in which the constituent uses the form printed two times per year in Discover, a fractional listing of around 13,000 legitimate owners of unclaimed property. Each new list in Discover has never been published before.We want to give each rightful owner every avenue possible to be reunited with his or her possessions, the Treasurer said. And we want to do it as quickly as possible. That's where Fast Track comes in.Quick Track claims are sped up e-claims which utilize outer databases to check the identity of the claimant and decide if it matches the property owner. In the event that claims are of a generally small amount and meet explicit identification standards, those cases may be fast-tracked for automated approval.Deputy Treasurer for Unclaimed Property Carolyn Atkinson said the Fast Track system has been in place since last fall. About 1,000 claims have been processed through Fast Track.Fast Track helps us to be more efficient while ensuring that claims are paid to the rightful owner, Atkinson said.