I am looking for some guidance on "how long" to hold statements returned due to undeliverable PO box or street address? If it has been determined that the address is invalid and the person can not be found do we even have to print a statement? Can we shread the statements after a certain period of time since it would be on disk?

We are looking into the same question, I would love to see what others are doing.

As long as you have the data readily available to reprint the statements I can't see why you shouldn't shred the paper statments.

Return statements are a problem, but the larger issue is the cost of postage to mail items that get returned every month. You can probably save thousands each year if you clean up the return mail file. This will also reduce the amount of mail returned.

Returned mail should not just be stored. Don't automatically put in the return mail box. Look at the reason returned. If its because the amount of postage was not correct, resend it. Make an effort to locate the customer. Look at the cancelled checks for a clue for a new address and phone number which may be written on them. Contact the customer and verify the change.

Often an institution sends out 0 balance statements for months. If these are being returned look at closing the account so statements won't keep being generated.

If you have very small balance accounts with no activity with mail returned, put them on a mail hold. A $2.00 balance and 24 months of returned statement is not efficiency at its best.

Look at your banks retention schedule to determine how long you need to keep returned mail "Account Statements"

Letters and other types of mail should be given to the bank person that wrote or sent the mail returned

The above is my post sorry I forgot to log in.

I also want to add that you should check to see that the address was accurately typed into the system. Based on the address we scrub for geocoding, aproximately 12% of address on the main frame have errors.

We have a department dedicated to the processing of returned mail and address changes. I believe they keep statements for three months. Promotional material, I believe, is destroyed as soon as they are done researching the reason for return.

The longer you store the statements, the greater the risk that an employee can see the information to access the account's funds.

Does anyone practice dual control on returned mail?

Physically no, but when mail is returned to the bank by the post office it is immediately forwarded to the Audit Department. The asst auditor opens the mail to check for address changes, phone number changes, and verifies the signatures on the checks to ensure they are that of the account holder (yep, we're a small bank! ). She then records the name, address, account number(s), and reason for return in a Control Mail Log and then forwards the statements back up to Bookkeeping for storage.

At least this way the Audit department has a role in the handling of the statements and we have checked the signatures to make sure they are authentic.