To mark the 50th year of its unclaimed property program, Louisiana’s state treasury is encouraging people to see if they might benefit from it — like the heir to $250,000 in old bearer bonds did recently.
Unclaimed property is lost or forgotten money from items such as royalties, unclaimed cash, stocks, bonds, securities and insurance proceeds that were never paid out.
One in six individuals in Louisiana has unclaimed property, with claims averaging $900, the state treasury says.
In one remarkable case, $250,000 in bearer bonds — fixed-interest securities held by the holder — were inside a safe deposit box in a Whitney bank in New Orleans that flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
After the bonds were recovered from the bank, the owner put them in a plastic storage bin that was kept in an attic for more than 17 years.
The original owner died, leaving the bonds to his heir, who got in touch with the state treasury department’s unclaimed property program.
Employees with the program restored each bond, recovered the certificate serial numbers and found matches in the unclaimed property database, allowing the full claim of $250,000 to be paid to the heir, the state treasury said in a news release Sunday.
“This is a very rare story, but it goes to show that you never know what may end up as unclaimed property,” State Treasurer John M. Schroder said in the statement.
“I encourage people to call our offices and check it out before you discard it as something insignificant or trash,” he said.
Over the past 50 years, the program has issued unclaimed property checks totaling $727 million to the rightful owners, the state treasury said.
The Louisiana Unclaimed Property Program can be reached at 888-925-4127 and online at LaCashClaim.org.
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