When he dies, that magananimous trust becomes the most expensive thing she ever gave him. The evidence for this statement is no longer anecdotal. It is regulatory data, published by three of India’s most consequential financial institutions (FI), and its scale demands that we treat the underlying cause as a matter of serious public concern.
As of February 2026, public sector banks have transferred ₹60,518 crore unclaimed deposits to the Reserve Bank of India’s Depositor Education Awareness Fund. These are savings accounts not operated for a decade, fixed deposits not claimed after
maturity, money that sat waiting for a claimant who either did not know it existed or could not produce the documents to establish the right to it.
Insurance companies carry a further ₹8,973 crore in unclaimed amounts: Matured policies, survival benefits, death claims that were never filed. Mutual funds account for another ₹3,749 crore . The Investor Education and Protection Fund, which holds unclaimed dividends and shares transferred by companies, carries an estimated ₹5,600 crore. In addition to this, as of February 2026, there were 3.18 million inoperative accounts, with ₹10,181 crore lying unclaimed in Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Of these, nearly 700,000 accounts are older than 20 years, while 180,000 are between 10-20 years old.
The combined figure across these categories runs well past ₹80,000 crore. This is not money lost to fraud or mismanagement. It is money whose rightful owners do not know where to find it, or in many cases, do not know it exists.
The government’s own campaign, conducted across 748 districts between October and December 2025 under the name Aapki Punji, Aapka Adhikar, could give back only ₹5,777 crore for nearly 2.3 million claimants , in spite of serious efforts involving the FIs and district officials. The scale of what remained unreturned after a nationwide drive coordinated by three regulators is itself the most incriminating evidence of how deep the knowledge gap runs.
Financial literacy in India is discussed almost entirely as a problem of product knowledge: Which insurance to buy, which fund to choose, what returns to expect. This framing is incomplete. The data above suggests that a significant portion of India’s financial problem is not about which products are purchased, but about whether the people who are entitled to those products are not aware of it.
A life insurance policy that cannot be traced when needed is not a financial asset. It remains as a mere number in insurance company records. A fixed deposit whose maturity the family does not know about is not savings. It is a ledger entry that will eventually be transferred to a government fund.
The claim process for each of these categories rewards the informed claimant and penalises the ignorant one. To file an insurance claim, the beneficiary needs the policy number, the insurer’s name, the servicing branch, and the agent’s contact. To recover a dormant bank deposit, a legal heir needs the account number, the branch, and specific documentation. To reclaim shares from the Investor Education and Protection Fund, a family must file Form IEPF-5 with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, attach multiple identity documents, and coordinate with the company’s nodal officer.
These processes are not unreasonable when the claimant is alive and informed. They are nearly impossible when the claimant is encountering the asset for the first time, in grief, without the foundational information that only the deceased possessed.
The conversation that is missing from Indian households is not about financial planning. It is about financial disclosure. One partner showing the other precisely what exists: The policy numbers and insurer names, the bank accounts and their branches, the mutual fund folios and the registrar contacts, the provident fund UAN, the share certificates and the demat account details. Not a general reassurance that things are in order, but the specific, documented, transferable knowledge that turns an asset from a private record into shared property.
This conversation must happen at the earliest, in every household in India. It requires no financial adviser, no legal intermediary, no special occasion. It requires only the recognition that the financial life of a marriage belongs to both people in it, and that the partner who holds the information alone has not completed the transaction. He has merely deferred it, at considerable cost, to a stranger at the gate.
Suseel Kumar is former managing director of LIC; and R Sudhakar is former executive director of LIC
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