Member Story: Sherryl
Sherryl knows better than most just how many curve balls life can throw your way. A Seattle native, she’s spent the last few years juggling a business, managing a family, and overseeing rental properties.
Her responsibilities intensified when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and she became his power of attorney, assuming his affairs. Recognizing her father’s need for around-the-clock medical care, Sherryl moved him into an assisted living home, where he currently lives.
The costs associated with her father’s existing rental properties and his care snowballed quickly.
“I thought I had things in control,” Sherryl says. “But the finances became overwhelming. I didn’t want to lose everything my dad worked so hard for.”
Sherryl began using her personal finances to cover her father’s expenses, and she almost took on a second job.
Out of the blue, she got a call from Michael Milat, Branch Supervisor, of our Rainier branch. Her father’s inactive account was going to be escheated if she did not claim it.
Escheatment is the process of identifying customer's deposit (checking, savings, etc.) and time deposit (CD) accounts that are considered abandoned and remitting the funds to the appropriate state if the customer cannot be contacted to re-activate the account.
Our teams, led this year by Cameron Rae, Contact Center Manager, work diligently every year to prevent escheatments by attempting to contact every affected account holder. This painstaking process sometimes leads to dead-ends. In Sherryl’s case, Cameron discovered the relation to her father’s account.
“My first thought was, I don’t have time for this,” Sherryl recalls. “All this stuff going on and I have to go into a bank?”
That branch visit changed Sherryl’s life.
Michael sat with Sherryl and pulled up her father’s account. In it was enough to cover all of her father’s financial obligations and his medical care – for the rest of his life.
“I had no idea he was that kind of saver,” Sherryl says. “I felt my stress lift – this huge weight. I started crying right there in the branch.”
Sherryl’s credits her father with teaching the family the value of working hard to achieve ambitious goals.
“And he always wanted to make sure we were taken care of,” she says.
Now, Sherryl manages the two rental properties her father owns. Her son is also in property management as part of a team that oversees a large luxury apartment community in downtown Seattle.
Her father’s legacy motivated Sherryl through financial challenges. Now, it inspires her to continue pursuing her dreams.