Key points:

1. Keep address current on every financial account. Run easy unclaimed property search every year. Neither cashing dividend checks, receiving direct deposits, online access, nor receiving statements prevents inactive accounts from being turned over to the state – only a personally-initiated transaction, postal response, or call. Difficult to retrieve money; stock is sold. 

2. Go to the official US/Canada MissingMoney website and check every state or province where you have ever lived, worked, or had a postal address:  https://www.missingmoney.com  "States and Provinces, through their partnership with the leading, trusted authority in unclaimed property – the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) – provide this free, safe, and secure site to the public."

Be sure to try variations on the spelling of your first and last names.

When stock (or other property) is escheated, it is sold by the state. You will be able to recover only the market value as of the time of sale – not any subsequent dividends, spinoff shares, or payouts.

Stock. Depending on when and how you acquired stock – and due to the sequence of spinoffs and acquisitions – you may now have shares of HPInc (HPQ), HPE, DXC, Keysight (KEYS), and/or Agilent (A) – in different accounts – and may not have received cash payouts for Micro Focus (MFGP) and Perspecta (PRSP). Find it all – and verify or estimate your current cost basis: HP/HPE-related stock 

Unclaimed property

Member: "I found that a relative had failed to use up all of a gift certificate given her back in 2015, and the balance was sitting there. Getting that documentation needed for that was pretty painless."

Almost everyone has some small stray uncashed check somewhere. This is common, even for people who haven't changed their address in decades. For example, one member found an HP-related check that had been mailed to a misspelled street address with an incorrect zip code.

"Unclaimed or 'abandoned' property refers to property or accounts within financial institutions or companies – in which there has been no activity generated (or contact with the owner) regarding the property for one year or a longer period. After a designated period of time (called the dormancy period) with no activity or contact, the property becomes 'unclaimed' and – by law – must be turned over to the state."
–National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators: What is Unclaimed Property?

Other references: EQ Equiniti (Transfer Agent) (scroll to page 7)     Computershare (Transfer Agent)   Fidelity   Investopedia  

Escheatment

Financial institutions are required to turn over inactive accounts and unclaimed property to the state or province in as little as two years – a process called "escheatment." Escheated property can be very difficult to retrieve. If the account contained stock, the stock is sold by the state at current market price – subsequent cash payouts, new stock, and dividends are lost. Furthermore, every financial institution has a "dormant account" policy – which can complicate things for you or your heirs.

- Keep postal address up to date on all financial accounts – including stock transfer agents, stock plan administrators, and brokers. Your employer does not update addresses on outsourced financial accounts.

- Neither collecting dividends, receiving notices in the mail, accessing accounts online, nor being in possession of paper certificates will always prevent a financial account from being treated as "dormant" or "unclaimed property."

- Make direct contact by phone or postal mail with each transfer agent, administrator, and broker at least once a year. You need to manually initiate a contact or transaction. You may not receive a pending-escheatment mailing.

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