Unclaimed money linked to former district health boards and other health agencies is among about $616 million currently held by New Zealand’s Inland Revenue (IR), under rules that govern how dormant balances are identified, transferred, and managed.
Publicly available IR records indicate that tens of thousands of dollars in unclaimed money are linked to former district health boards (DHBs) and related entities. These include $88,432 listed for the Middlemore Hospital Gastro Research Fund, $50,829 for South Auckland Health, and $28,000 for the former Auckland District Health Board. The DHBs were disestablished in 2022 and replaced by a single national organisation, Health New Zealand (Health NZ). Asked about the balances, Health NZ said it would work with IR to recover any amounts that are properly payable to the new entity.
According to 1News, chief finance officer Bevan McKenzie said any recovered funds would be “invested into the delivery of health services for all New Zealanders.” He did not specify how any recovered amounts would be allocated across services or regions. The IR list also shows a range of other organisations with unclaimed balances, including sports clubs, surf life saving groups, fire brigades, political parties, and churches. IR itself briefly appeared as a named owner with a small balance before the department confirmed the entry was an administrative error and removed it from the database.
Under the Unclaimed Money Act 1971, unclaimed money arises when a bank, insurer, or other business holds money for a customer and has had no contact with that customer for a defined period, commonly five years for many financial products. For insurance and financial services, examples include:
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In some cases, trustees may transfer undistributable trust property to the Crown through the Treasury. The Māori Trustee, Public Trust, and various government agencies also administer specific categories of unclaimed money or property under separate legislation.
An IR spokesperson told 1News that the statutory responsibility sits first with the original holder of the funds. They noted that the Unclaimed Money Act requires that “a holder must make reasonable efforts to locate the owner of money that is, or will soon become, unclaimed money and to communicate with the owner concerning the money.” Once a holder transfers unclaimed money to IR, the department lists it on a searchable database available through the IR website and via myIR. IR currently retains unclaimed money for up to 25 years. If no valid claim is made within that period, the balance is removed from the list and reverts to the Crown, and no further claims can be made. IR also states that these balances are separate from income tax refunds and other tax-related credits, which are handled under different rules.
The policy settings for unclaimed money are under review. An October 2025 insight from Deloitte noted that the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill proposes changes “aimed at simplifying the management of unclaimed money by Inland Revenue, with the intention of making it easier for rightful owners to make claims.” Currently, holders paying unclaimed money to IR must provide information on the source of the amount, the owner’s identity and whereabouts, and the basis of the owner’s entitlement, to the extent that information is already in their possession or control and readily available.
Under the bill, when transferring unclaimed money, holders would need to provide more detailed identifying data, again only where it is already held and can be accessed without disproportionate effort. This would include the owner’s full name, date of birth, tax file number, address, and contact details, as well as account numbers and the date of the owner’s last interaction with the account, where that applies. Deloitte observed that “with more data points being required upfront, there will be a need for businesses dealing with unclaimed money to give thought to whether new systems and processes are required to efficiently extract information, particularly if it is spread across different information sources.”
The bill also proposes to shorten the period during which unclaimed money can be claimed from 25 years to 20 years. After the 20‑year limit, money would be removed from IR’s unclaimed money list and transferred permanently to the Crown. According to Deloitte’s analysis, IR received about 23,000 unclaimed money claims in the 2023/24 year and approved around 4,300, with payments totalling $36.5 million. More than $500 million remained on the register after those approvals. The proposed changes are scheduled to take effect from April 1, 2026.
Although IR is the most visible administrator, the New Zealand Treasury notes that unclaimed money can also arise in a range of other contexts relevant to insurers, trustees, and intermediaries. Trust money that cannot be distributed under a trust deed may be paid to the Crown through Treasury under the Trusts Act 2019, with Treasury holding those funds in a trust account for six years before transferring them to the Crown if no claim is made. The Māori Trustee may classify funds held in the common fund for at least 10 years as unclaimed under the Māori Trustee Act 1953. Public Trust can be appointed to manage land and other property where the owner cannot be identified or located. Income derived from such property may pass to the Crown after specified statutory periods if no entitlement is established.
Superannuation and retirement schemes, including the Government Superannuation Fund and National Provident Fund, follow their own rules for dormant entitlements and may transfer long‑standing unclaimed balances to central administrators. Government departments and Crown entities must pay unclaimed balances older than six years to the Treasury under the Public Finance Act 1989. For life insurers, group risk providers, intermediaries, and administrators of superannuation-style products, the size of the unclaimed money pool and the pending reforms are likely to affect how dormant balances are identified and handled. Proceeds of life insurance policies are specifically recognised as a form of unclaimed money that may be transferred to Inland Revenue if beneficiaries cannot be located after five years.
In practice, this has implications for maintaining policyholder and beneficiary records, updating contact details over the life of a policy, and keeping evidence of contact attempts. With Inland Revenue and Treasury increasing their focus on unclaimed sums, insurers and related entities may need to:
The combination of a large pool of unclaimed money, more prescriptive information requirements, and a shorter claim window is likely to make unclaimed benefit administration a more prominent compliance and operational issue in the lead‑up to April 1, 2026.
