FAQ’s

Century Investment Group Ops, Inc. (C.I.G.) was formed in February 2009 and is enjoying its 14th year of success under the full ownership of Mark Harrington (CEO).  C.I.G.’s professional staff has more than 35 years of combined industry experience and a track record of recovering millions of dollars for financial institutions, businesses and individual estate heirs across the U.S.  Century Investment Group, Inc. is registered in good standing with the Florida Department of State Offices and is dedicated to providing our clients with the most satisfying recovery process possible.

If Century Investment Group notified you of lost or unclaimed assets it may be possible to claim them on your own. However, if locating lost assets, filing and following claims was indeed easy, we would not be in business. The process of locating and claiming assets is challenging and time consuming and has taken years for us to perfect. We’ve found that even people who have located assets on their own give up in frustration because the claims process is often convoluted and confusing. Because we know the process and have developed solid relationships with asset holders, we will help you avoid unnecessary expenses and potential mistakes.

We work on a contingency-fee basis on all claims, with terms spelled out in a written contract signed by Century Investment Group, Inc. (CIG) and you. We cover all expenses incurred in the claims process, so you pay no upfront costs. Once assets are recovered, we deduct any expenses incurred from the total and you pay CIG the percentage from the remaining amount, as agreed upon in our written contract. Deducting expenses from the total amount recovered gives you added assurance that we will keep those costs to a minimum. Finally, in the uncommon instance that we are unable to recover your assets, we absorb all expenses and you owe nothing.

The phrase refers to anything owed to you or your family that you are unaware exists. There are a number of reasons you or your family could be owed money you do not know about. The assets could be the result of property, stocks or bonds, insurance policies, royalties, rentals, wages, tax refunds-or a number of other possibilities. By the time we contact you, most assets have been reduced to a monetary figure and are being held by a variety of agencies or parties. In most cases the laws regarding these funds don’t require the party holding the assets to make more than a cursory attempt at locating the beneficiary, meaning that without our research that money could go unclaimed.

Assets may be the result of inheritance, lost payments or returns on property, businesses or insurance policies, etc., purchased years ago by a member of your family. Over time, mistakes get made on names and addresses and people move, get married, use nicknames, or change their names for other reasons so that it becomes hard for entities to locate beneficiaries. Also, due to laws that allow entities to invest the assets and eventually absorb those that remain unclaimed, there is little incentive for the asset holder to make more than a cursory attempt at locating beneficiaries.

Since its inception, Century Investment Group, Inc. has uncovered countless sources of assets that typically remain hidden until the claiming rights expire. Regulations do not require all asset custodians to make their lists public or to make more than a cursory attempt to locate entitled owners. These asset sources include, but are not limited to:

• Forgotten savings and checking accounts
• Uncashed or lost checks/warrants
• Securities
• Royalties
• Interest or dividend payments
• Life insurance death benefits or payouts
• Income tax refunds or overpayments
• Property tax refunds or overpayments
• Employee wage or pension payments
• Surplus proceeds from a governmental auction of real or personal property
• Inheritance payout from a deceased relative or love one
• Funds due the beneficiary of a loan or the creditor of a judgment
• Many other sources

Our service is to uncover these concealed assets and track down the heirs, private parties, and organizations with the right to claim them. As you can imagine, the claims process is complex and is often compounded by an asset holder’s reluctance to release assets they might otherwise be allowed to absorb after a certain time.

If you have been contacted by Century Investment Group, Inc. it is only because we have determined you are entitled to unclaimed or lost assets. In addition, we work on a contingency-fee basis and receive no money for our work until you received your settlement.

We encourage you to contact us if you have any questions.

If we have already contacted you, the first step is to complete and return the Client-Agent Agreement. The agreement spells out the terms and conditions in easy-to-understand terms and provides Century Investment Group Ops, Inc. with the authority to act on your behalf while working on the claim. After we receive all the required paperwork, a claims manager will contact you with any further needs and keep you up to date on the status of your claim.

That can vary depending on the type and complexity of your claim or the body holding the assets. For most of our clients, the claims process takes between two months to a year to complete once the claim is filed, but there are cases that take several years to complete. After receiving all the necessary paperwork, your claims manager will be able to provide a more accurate timeline based on your particular claim.

We will do everything possible to expedite your claim, but in many cases there are no laws mandating when asset holders must release the assets, so the asset holder dictates the length of your wait. Remember, we operate on a contingency-fee basis and receive no payment until your assets are returned, so it is in our best interests to move as quickly as possible.

There is no easy answer to that question. Every claim is unique, and asset holders are regulated by a variety of different laws. Assets held by the State Abandoned Property Offices usually have either lengthy or no time limits, but those are not the assets we normally locate and recover. Many assets we locate have fairly narrow time windows in which you can file a claim, and some asset holders are allowed to absorb the unclaimed asset after that time expires. When we locate assets and contact potential claimants, we inform them of any relevant claims deadlines. Whether there is a deadline or not, the claims process can be lengthy, so we advise that you return all your paperwork as promptly as possible. The sooner we are able to recover your assets, the sooner you will be able to put them to work for you.

When we locate unclaimed or lost assets for people, we go to great lengths to make sure they receive them. We have highly sophisticated software developed for that reason, and subscribe to several national databases. Our investigators search public records such as voter registrations, telephone directories, driver’s records, birth and death certificates, change of address filings, marriage and divorce filings and military registers as well as genealogical and historical records.

Century Investment Group Ops, Inc. follows a strict Privacy Policy and guarantees we will only use your information for the purposes of resolving your claim.