One thing in banking that no one truly prepares for is the death of a loved one. And I'm not talking about the emotional toll. I'm talking about the bureaucratic nightmare of accessing their bank accounts.

Convincing customers to add beneficiaries to their accounts is harder than it should be. It's not as sexy as getting life insurance, but it's infinitely easier and way less suspicious to a homicide detective looking into motives. Yet people still don't do it. And when they die without beneficiaries? Well, buckle up, buckaroo, because we're about to take a journey through one of banking's most obscure and infuriating processes: Escheatment.

Blake calls the bank 12 years after his father's death, freshly inspired by rifling through old paperwork in his dad's filing cabinet. Among the dust and forgotten tax returns, he found a document mentioning a Certificate of Deposit (CD) with our bank.

"I think my dad had a CD at your bank before he died. Can you check to see if it's still active?"

Here's where we hit the first brick wall: I cannot release any information to someone who isn't a signer on the account. It doesn't matter if you're the son, the daughter, the spouse, or his favorite uncle. Bank privacy laws are ironclad on this. I can't even confirm whether his father had an account, let alone how much money is in it.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not able to look anything up unless I know I'm speaking to the signer on the account."

Then I drop the real bomb: "Given how long ago your father passed away, it's actually pretty unlikely the bank even still has those funds. The bank may have had to turn them over to the state through a process called Escheatment."

Silence from Blake, then…

Escheatment is the legal process by which a financial institution turns over unclaimed or abandoned property to the state. Your money doesn't just sit in a bank account forever. By law, if an account sits dormant for a specific period (usually 3 to 5 years, depending on the state), the bank must attempt to contact the owner. If that attempt fails, the bank is legally required to remit those funds to the state's treasury.

Yes, you read that right. The state takes your money.

And no, the bank doesn't get to keep it. Banks don't want to hold onto dormant accounts. It's a compliance nightmare. So when they can't reach you, they legally hand your money to the state, which acts as a permanent custodian until you (or your heirs) come looking for it.

Blake's father opened a 5-year CD. When it matured, he either passed away or gave no instructions, so the bank rolled it over automatically. For the next several years, there was zero activity. No deposits, no withdrawals, no transfers. Interest posted by the bank doesn't count. The owner has to actively do something.

The account is flagged as dormant. Before the bank could hand the money to the state, they were legally required to send a certified letter to the last known address on file. But Blake's father is dead. The letter went nowhere. The deadline passed. The bank bundled up the funds, filed the escheatment paperwork, and sent the money to the state's unclaimed property division.

Blake's father's CD has been sitting in a state database for years when he calls me.

Since I can't verify who I'm speaking with, I can't confirm anything about the account. What I can do is tell Blake what typically happens in situations like his.

"If your father had an account with us and it's been dormant for 12 years, there's a very good chance the bank already turned those funds over to the state. I can't tell you whether that's the case here, but I can tell you what that process looks like and how you'd go about recovering the money."

Blake's first instinct is that the money is gone. Lost. Sitting in some government vault until the end of time.

It's not.

Unclaimed property is held by the state indefinitely. There's no statute of limitations. No "sorry, we gave it away" clause. If the money was escheated, it's waiting for someone to come claim it.

Step 1: Search the State's Database Visit the state's unclaimed property website. Most states participate in MissingMoney.com, a national database. Search for the deceased's name to find the exact property ID, amount, and escheatment date.

Step 2: File a Claim Blake fills out the state's claim form as an heir or executor. Most states now have this online, which is a small mercy.

Step 3: Gather Documentation. This is where the paperwork hits. Blake needs:

The state is verifying that Blake isn't some random person trying to claim another person's money. Which, unsurprisingly, is a thing that happens.

Step 4: Wait, Then Get Paid. Processing takes anywhere from a few weeks to several months. Once approved, the state issues a check to the estate or directly to Blake as the authorized heir.

One important note: the state doesn't pay interest. A $10,000 CD that's been sitting for 12 years comes back as $10,000 or the amount in the account when it went dormant. (It would include any interest accrued while the account was still active) Interest stopped accumulating once the account went dormant.

This entire ordeal could have been avoided if Blake's father had simply named a beneficiary on that CD.

With a beneficiary listed, the bank contacts them directly when the account goes dormant. The funds transfer without the state ever getting involved. No state databases. No death certificates. No months of waiting for a check.

Instead, Blake spent 12 years wondering where his father's money went, only to discover it's in a file cabinet in some state office marked "Unclaimed Property."

Beneficiaries are free. They take five minutes to add. And they prevent exactly this.

But do people add them? No. They put it off. They forget. They think it's not necessary. Then they die, and their heirs spend months playing detective and filling out state forms to recover money that should have transferred instantly.

Because dying is inconvenient enough without adding a treasure hunt to the grieving process.