Money goes unclaimed for ordinary reasons. People move and forget to update an address. A company mails a final paycheck or a refund to an apartment someone left months earlier. A relative dies and the family never learns about an old account or insurance policy. After a period set by state law, the business that owes the money has to stop trying and report it to the state.

From that moment the money is held for the owner, often for as long as it takes for the owner or an heir to come forward. According to USAGov, state governments hold most of it. Nobody is going to knock on your door with it, which is exactly why a search is worth the few minutes it takes.

Think of it in two layers. The first and biggest layer is the states. Each state runs an unclaimed property program, usually inside the office of the treasurer, comptroller or controller, and holds money such as dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks, deposits, insurance proceeds and stocks.

The second layer is a set of federal programs for specific cases: unpaid wages, pensions from private plans that ended, veterans life insurance, refunds on FHA mortgage insurance, tax refunds that never arrived, deposits from closed banks and credit unions, and matured savings bonds. There is no single place that searches all of them at once, so a complete check means the states plus the federal programs that match your history.

Start with a list. Write every state where you have lived or worked and every name you have used. Then run the free multi-state search at MissingMoney.com, which most state programs take part in, under each name. Next, open the official program of each state on your list, using the map of state programs at unclaimed.org, the site of the association of state administrators, so you know you are on the real one.

Finish with the federal list on the USAGov page, picking only the programs that fit your life. If you never had an FHA mortgage, skip it; if you had a traditional pension, do not skip the pension search. The whole routine takes well under an hour.

A result usually shows a name, part of an address and the business that reported the money. The address is your best clue: if it matches a place you lived, the record is probably yours. Start the claim directly on the state program that holds it.

Expect to prove who you are and how you are connected to the record. A photo ID and one document showing the old address, such as an old bill or lease, cover most simple claims. Claims for a relative who has died, for a business or for a name that changed need extra papers, and they usually take longer. Keep copies of everything and note your claim number.

Retirement savings are one of the easiest things to lose track of. A 401(k) from a job you held for a year, or a pension earned before a company was sold, can sit untouched for decades. Begin with the human resources office of the former employer, or the plan administrator named on any old statement.

The Department of Labor also offers a free database called Retirement Savings Lost and Found for private-sector employer and union plans, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation keeps a search for pensions from plans that ended. A distribution check that was never cashed may also have been reported to a state, which is one more reason to run the state searches.

Official programs do not charge to search or to claim. Some private companies, often called finders, offer to recover money for a percentage; they can be legitimate, but the work they offer is the same free search and claim form you can complete yourself. Before signing anything, look up the state program named in the letter and search there first.

Be careful with any message that asks for a fee before releasing money, wants payment by gift card, wire transfer or cryptocurrency, pushes you to act right now, or asks for your bank login. The Federal Trade Commission keeps current warnings about impostor scams on its consumer advice site.

Spread the work across four short sessions instead of one long one. Day one, write your list of states, names and addresses. Day two, run the multi-state search under every name. Day three, search each state program on your list. Day four, go through the federal databases that apply to you. If something turns up, use the following days to gather your documents and file the claim.

Then put a yearly reminder in your calendar. Businesses keep reporting unclaimed property, so a search that finds nothing this year may find something next year, especially after a move or a job change.