According to The Securities & Exchange Commission, there are  over 3 million stockholders that are entitled to more than $10 Billion Dollars in unclaimed stock. This doesn’t include the millions in stock dividend checks that go uncashed each year. A huge surge in corporate mergers, acquisitions, restructurings,  and name changes over the past dozen years has caused these numbers to grow at staggering rates.  If you or a relative was a stockholder in a company that was merged or taken over, you may have spin-off shares, cash or dividends waiting for you. There really isn’t a time limit for recovering these unclaimed assets.  However, the government has the ability to liquidate stock shares and any future appreciation and dividends could be lost.

Life insurance company demutualizations account for the lion’s share of unclaimed stock. Big insurers like Metropolitan Life & John Hancock are 2 such companies that have left their policyholders with a fortune in unclaimed securities.  Demutualization is a process in which a mutual life insurance company owned by its policyholders is converted into a publicly traded stock company.

There are millions of policyholders and heirs unaware they are entitled to billions in demutualization compensation. This compensation usually takes the form of stock shares, dividends and the original life insurance policy. How does this happen? It’s simply a case of out dated address.  How much are we talking? A single company, John Hancock, reports having over 40 million shares of unclaimed stock worth more than $2.5 billion dollars!