Nearly 143,000 checks totaling more than $34 million are set to be mailed out this week to residents in every parish in Louisiana.
“I want to stress to all of the recipients that these are real checks from the Louisiana Department of Treasury, so please cash them,” Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming urged residents.
The checks are printed on blue paper and delivered in a windowed envelope with the unclaimed property division of Fleming’s office listed as the return address.
“Every year, some of the checks we mail out are not cashed. This is due to people changing addresses and others not believing the checks are real,” Fleming said last week. “Let me guarantee that these checks are real. It’s your money.”
It’s the largest batch of unclaimed property since 2018, the first year that state lawmakers permitted the Louisiana Department of Revenue to share addresses with the Louisiana Department of Treasury to return unclaimed property, Fleming announced.
One in six Louisiana residents is entitled to some of the $1.2 billion in unclaimed assets that have been turned over to the state treasurer, according to his office. Such property includes payroll checks, old bank accounts, royalties, utility deposits, stock certificates and life insurance.
This year, Jefferson Parish has the largest number of checks to be mailed, with 13,500 payments totaling more than $3.3 million. Orleans Parish has a slightly larger amount of money to be distributed to a slightly smaller number of recipients, with 13,000 checks worth more than $3.4 million.
The highest average payouts per check are all in smaller parishes, with La Salle, De Soto and Claiborne parishes topping that list.
In addition to the 142,700 checks due to be mailed on Friday, there are another 2,500 claims that exceed the maximum amount for an automatic check. In those cases, Fleming’s staff will send out claim forms with instructions for how to collect the property, according to the treasurer’s office.
Residents may visit LaCashClaim.org or call the Treasury’s Unclaimed Property Division at (888) 925-4127 during business hours to check if the state is holding any of their unclaimed property.
