$ 87m in idle super accounts of locals

TOWNSVILLE residents are missing out on almost $ 90 million of their own “lost” money.

The latest data from the Australian Taxation Office on lost and unclaimed super has revealed $ 87,583,242.69 is sitting in 5898 “lost” superannuation accounts belonging to people in Townsville.

Super is considered “lost” when a super fund is unable to contact the member and the account has not received a contribution for five years.

A breakdown of the lost super by Townsville postcodes revealed $ 25,621,775.97 was lost from 1209 accounts in the 4813 postcode area, which includes the suburbs of Thuringowa, Cranbrook, Annandale, Garbutt and Douglas.

In the Townsville area, which is postcode 4810, there are 942 accounts missing out on $ 17,289,079.24.

This is followed close behind by postcode 4817, which includes the suburbs of Thuringowa Central and Kirwan, which have 785 accounts with $ 18,264,458.38 of lost super waiting to be claimed.

Lost super money is held by super funds.

Unclaimed super is superannuation money held by the ATO for individuals that they can claim at any time.

“Unclaimed super is always available for individuals to claim, no matter how long it is lost,” an ATO spokesman said.

To reclaim lost or unclaimed super, workers just need to go online, claim the lost account and transfer its balance to an active account.

“MyGov allows individuals to view all their super accounts including ‘ lost’ and ‘ unclaimed’ super and consolidate by transferring their unclaimed super to an existing fund account or making a direct claim for payment ( where eligible),” the ATO spokesman said.

As at June 30, 2016, there was a total of $ 14.8 billion held in lost and unclaimed super accounts nationally.