Published: June 12, 2009 09:54 pm         

Attorney General tours state to draw attention to unclaimed property

Vigo has more than 4K unclaimed properties

TERRE HAUTE — Some Hoosiers may be entitled to money they don’t know about — perhaps from a utility escrow account while in college, or from a closed and forgotten account for a safe-deposit box.

It could even be money from an undeliverable stock dividend.

To find out, simply visit the Web site, www.IndianaUnclaimed.com, said Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller during a Friday stopover in Terre Haute at the Vigo County Annex.

“This is a bad economy and people might need a little extra money, so we prefer to have it back to the rightful owner,” said Zoeller, who was traveling statewide to raise awareness of unclaimed assets.

Last year, more than $35 million was returned from the state’s unclaimed property database. Of that, $917,333 was returned to more than 944 Hoosiers in a nine-county region that includes Vigo, Vermillion, Parke, Clay, Sullivan, Greene, Knox, Daviess and Martin counties.

As of 2008, Vigo County had 4,101 unclaimed properties, worth more than $4.94 million. In the nine-county region, nearly $10 million remains unclaimed, Zoeller said. That is about 2.6 percent of $383.5 million worth of unclaimed property statewide.

The top 10 unclaimed properties in Vigo County range from a high of $37,735 to a low of $14,242. One example in the top 10 is Ruth O. Goodman, listed as a Terre Haute resident eligible to receive more than $16,000 from a college retirement equities fund plus more than $7,000 from a life insurance payment.

Goodman’s name does not appear in a Terre Haute city directory or in telephone books.

Unclaimed property includes investment earnings, insurance proceeds and benefits, wages, and money from savings and checking accounts.

Only about 1 percent of unclaimed property is “physical property,” such as jewelry, collector coins or U.S. paper currency, Zoeller said. Those are most often found in safe-deposit boxes.

Unclaimed property does not include abandoned vehicles, real estate or other such items.

Online auctions are held to sell items found in safe-deposit boxes. The money collected through the auctions is added to the unclaimed property database and held for its owner, Zoeller said.

Banks and other financial institutions are required annually to turn over the assets of accounts in which there has been no activity for five or seven years, depending on the type of account, he said.

“Last year, Indiana had more than $54 million [in assets] turned over to the state,” Zoeller said.

The state’s attorney general is required to annually advertise the list of unclaimed property turned over to the state for a one-year period. The announcements run twice in a two-week period in the newspaper nearest the last known address of the property owner.

The entire list can be viewed year-round at the state’s above-mentioned Web site.

Indiana holds assets for 25 years, and if a property is not claimed, the state becomes the recipient of the assets. In addition, the state annually earns interest income from the unclaimed asset fund, which is placed into the state’s budget, Zoeller said.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com