4.2 Trillion Won in Unclaimed Insurance Money Returned Last Year... "Find Yours This Year Too"

On the 21st, the Financial Services Commission announced that about 4.2 trillion KRW (1.25 million cases) of unclaimed insurance money was refunded last year. This year, starting from July, they plan to intensively guide insurance policyholders or beneficiaries to recover unclaimed insurance money worth approximately 12.1 trillion KRW in cooperation with the insurance industry.

Unclaimed insurance money refers to insurance payments whose amounts have been confirmed but have not been claimed. This usually occurs because the insured did not receive notifications from the insurance company due to changes in address or contact information and thus were unaware of the insurance payout, or because after the insurance contract matures, they do not claim the money, unaware that the interest rate applied to the insurance payout significantly decreases.

Unclaimed insurance money includes surrender values, maturity benefits, dormant insurance money, other death benefits, and unclaimed retirement pension reserves from closed businesses. Currently, the remaining unclaimed insurance money amounts to 9.1355 trillion KRW in surrender values, 2.1796 trillion KRW in maturity benefits, and 795.6 billion KRW in dormant insurance money.

Over the past five years, a total of 18.0104 trillion KRW of unclaimed insurance money has been returned to its owners. Last year, by insurance sector, the refunded unclaimed insurance money was 3.846 trillion KRW (963,000 cases) from life insurance companies and 306.4 billion KRW (284,000 cases) from non-life insurance companies. By type of insurance money, it included 2.0488 trillion KRW in surrender values, 1.72 trillion KRW in maturity benefits, 360.3 billion KRW in dormant insurance money, and 23.3 billion KRW in death benefits.