The average commercial check costs $7.78 to issue. The real number — once you factor reissues, stop-pays, tracking, escheatment and uncashed funds — is far higher. And between 10% and 60% of settlement checks are never cashed at all.
Move the sliders to model your program. We'll show what's sitting in limbo, what it's costing you, and what digital disbursement would recover.
Your Settlement Profile editable
Total settlement fundGross amount to be disbursed
$10,000,000
$500K$10M$50M$200M
Number of claimantsRecipients on the distribution list
12,000
50012K50K250K
Current uncashed-check rate% of mailed checks never deposited
Reissue rateChecks reprinted due to returned mail, wrong address, etc.
14%
0%14%25%40%
Fiduciary exposure — uncashed funds
$2.80M
Sitting in limbo on this distribution. That's 3,360 claimants who never saw their money — an average of $833 each.
Check program total cost
$120,420
Issuance + reissue + admin
Digital recoverable
$840.0K
At 30% take-up lift
Checks issued12,000
Checks reissued1,680
Uncashed checks3,360
Avg. payment size$833
Escheatment exposure (3 yr)$2.80M
Total fiduciary liability$2.92M
Your program vs. Talli digital disbursement
Check programYour current setup
$120,420
$120,420
Digital (Talli)ACH, virtual debit, digital wallets
$10,400
$10,400
Net savingsOver this single distribution
$110,020
$110,020
The math, in plain English
You're mailing 12,000 checks on a $10,000,000 fund. Your settings say 28% will never be cashed — that's 3,360 checks and roughly $2.80M in claimant money sitting in your account at year-end. Between issuance, reissues, and reconciliation, you'll spend $120,420 processing the program. Digital disbursement compresses that to under $10,400 and typically recovers 30%+ of the uncashed balance.
Assumptions: Industry benchmarks from Bank of America commercial-check data ($7.78 avg. per check), AFP treasury surveys, and Talli's own cohort data. Uncashed-rate defaults reflect class-action settlement norms published in Rule 23(e) filings. Your mileage may vary — tune the sliders to your own program.
What Talli changes
1Multi-channel outreach. Email + SMS + reminders replace the "mailbox lottery" — closing the gap between issued and cashed.
2Flexible payout rails. ACH, virtual prepaid debit, PayPal, Venmo, Amazon gift card — claimants pick what works.
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