(Radio Iowa) – State Treasurer Roby Smith says more than 68 million dollars of unclaimed property has been turned over so far this year to the Great Iowa Treasure Hunt. “This is the largest amount that’s been turned over to us. It brings our total amount to 586 million dollars that we’re safe keeping, that we’re looking back, looking to get back to Iowans,” Smith says. The record amount easily surpasses the previous record of nearly 43 million. Smith believes the large amount of unclaimed money and property is linked to the chaos of the pandemic. “Don’t know exactly, but we have spoken to other states, and what we’ve kind of come up with is businesses keep the money for three years, and it’s turned over,” he explains. “Three years ago we were coming out of the pandemic, so we believe it was dealing with the pandemic where you had businesses that were closing, transferring ownership, being sold.” Smith says.

He says all those transactions likely led to the money not being claimed and its now been turned over. Smith says the average amount claimed is 150 dollars, but it can be a lot more and a lot less. “I gave a check away to someone for 317-thousand dollars in November, we had a record amount of over four million dollars given away a year ago, or given back, I should say, not giving away four million dollars, so you just don’t know, sometimes it’s 25 dollars and sometimes it’s ten-thousand dollars,” Smith says. Smith encourages everyone to go to GreatIowaTreasureHunt.gov and search for your name.

“They can check for themselves, a family member, a friend, a business, a nonprofit. And we, like I said, we have 586 million dollars that we’re looking to reunite with Iowa and all across the state,” Smith says. He says you may have found unclaimed property on the site already, but you check again as new items come in every year.