Tools
Ciclade, Agira, Info Retraite, Claude or ChatGPT
Price
Free
Time
30 min
Level
Beginner

A savings account opened at 18 in a bank you have since left, a company savings plan with a former employer, a grandparent's life insurance nobody knew about: this money can sit untouched for years. Freelancers and business owners often change banks, legal status and employers several times, and rarely have time to sort it out.

Important: the services below are the French system. They cover accounts and contracts held in France. If your money is elsewhere, see the section on other countries further down.

The searches themselves happen on official websites, for free. The AI does not search for you: it helps you make sure nothing is missing from your list, then prepares each step. It is also a good exercise in using AI on a sensitive subject without handing over your data.

The three official French services

  • Ciclade, run by the Caisse des Dépôts, France's public financial institution. The site describes itself as free and as the only service for searching unclaimed sums: dormant bank accounts, employee savings, life insurance, death cover contracts, capitalization bonds. According to Ciclade, with variations by product, a bank account is considered dormant after one year without any transaction or contact (five years for employee savings); the bank keeps it for ten years, then transfers it to the Caisse des Dépôts, which holds it for twenty years. After thirty years, the money goes to the State. You search under the name the account or contract was opened in.
  • Agira, to find out whether a deceased person held a life insurance policy naming you as beneficiary. The request is made through an online form, with the death certificate. Agira forwards it to insurers within 15 days; they then have one month to reply, only if they find a policy. For a relative who died more than ten years ago, Ciclade advises searching on its own site.
  • Info Retraite, the shared portal of French pension schemes. The pension account lets you view your rights and request a correction to your career record. A forgotten period of work on your record means a smaller pension later.

The method in four steps

  1. Take stock with AIPaste the prompt below into Claude or ChatGPT. It asks the AI to put closed questions to you about your history (banks, jobs, moves, deaths in the family) without ever asking for a name, number or address. You answer yes or no, and get a list of searches to run.
  2. Search on the official sitesType the site address yourself in your browser (see the sources). Run one search per name you have used: if you changed your name, search under the old one too.
  3. Prepare the paperwork with AIIf a search returns a match, use the second prompt to get the list of documents to gather and a letter template with blank fields. You fill in those fields yourself, outside the AI.
  4. Check every rule at the sourceAI can get a deadline or condition wrong. Before sending anything, re-read the official page of the service concerned.

Prompt 1: the inventory

Prompt
Help me list the money I may have forgotten in France, so I can then search for it myself on the official sites (Ciclade, Agira, Info Retraite).

Strict rules:
- Never ask for my name, first name, date of birth, address, account number, IBAN, social security number or contract number.
- Ask me closed questions (yes / no / I don't know), one category at a time: bank and savings accounts, employee savings, life insurance and death cover, pension, death of a relative.
- Ask at most 4 questions per category, and wait for my answers before moving on.

At the end, give me a checklist: for each "yes" or "I don't know", the official service to use, what I need to have at hand and the question to ask myself. If you are not sure about a rule, write "check on the official site" instead of stating it.

Prompt 2: prepare the paperwork

Prompt
My search on [Ciclade / Agira / Info Retraite] returned a match for [a bank account / a life insurance policy / a missing career period].

1. Give me the list of steps and documents usually requested, marking each one "to confirm on the official site".
2. Write a short, polite letter or message template with blank fields in brackets: [NAME], [REFERENCE], [DATE]. Do not invent any information on my behalf.
3. List the warning signs of a scam to watch for during the process.

A real-life example: a shop owner answers "yes" to "Did you have a company savings plan with a former employer?" and "I don't know" to "Did you have summer jobs as a student?". Her list tells her to search on Ciclade and to check her early years on her Info Retraite record. She gave the AI nothing personal.

Outside France

Each country has its own system. Two that I checked on their official pages: in the United States, unclaimed property is held by each state, and the state administrators' association (NAUPA) lists the official sites at unclaimed.org, where searching is free. In Canada, the Bank of Canada lets you search unclaimed bank balances. For any other country, look for the government or central bank service, and adapt the first prompt by replacing the names of the French services.

Good to know

  • Ciclade only finds what has already been transferred to it. An account dormant for less than ten years is still at the bank: contact the bank directly.
  • AI does not know your situation and can get deadlines wrong. It prepares, it does not decide.

Watch out for scams. Ciclade states that the Caisse des Dépôts does not contact individuals, and Agira warns about calls, emails and texts announcing an inheritance and asking for a payment to release it. Searches are free on the official sites. Never give your bank details to someone who contacts you out of the blue, and never paste personal data into an AI assistant.

Sources

Having AI prepare a file from a list of questions is also something you can set up inside a business: see my AI agents.