Raising a Glass: £80.2m Worth of Unclaimed Prizes Yet to be Claimed
Tens of thousands of households may be in for a pleasant surprise as National Savings & Investments (NS&I) is making efforts to locate winners of unclaimed Premium Bond prizes. According to NS&I, there are over 2.3 million unclaimed prizes totalling £80.2 million.
Many winners are unaware of their good fortune because they haven’t updated their contact information with NS&I, particularly if they have moved. NS&I is unable to reach them in such cases. Additionally, some winners may not even know that they hold Premium Bonds because they were given paper-based bonds as children. These bonds, which have been a popular gift since 1956, often end up forgotten and stored away.
NS&I has recently intensified its efforts to find winners and has successfully reissued around £1 million worth of prizes (33,888 prizes in total) since December 2021. In April, they even launched a pilot project to reach out to loved ones of deceased customers with unclaimed prizes, resulting in £33,000 being disbursed to beneficiaries.
However, the number of unclaimed prizes is expected to rise as the chance of winning increases to its highest level in 24 years. The prize rate for September’s draw will be 4.65%, up from the current 4%, and the odds of winning will improve from 22,000 to 21,000 to one.
So, what is NS&I doing to locate winners, and how can you check if you may be one of them?
NS&I’s Mission: Tracking Down Premium Bond Winners
Premium Bonds are a beloved savings product in the UK, with approximately 21 million people holding them. Rather than providing regular interest, Premium Bonds offer the opportunity to win tax-free prizes through monthly draws.
Over time, bondholders may lose track of their bonds, resulting in 2,300,822 unclaimed prizes, which account for about 0.36% of all prizes ever paid. Prizes become classified as unclaimed after 18 months, and surprisingly, the year with the most unclaimed prizes is 2020, totaling 271,110.
In an effort to drastically reduce the number of unclaimed prizes, NS&I has partnered with a specialist data company to locate customers they have lost contact with. Lists of customers believed to have changed addresses are provided to the data company, which then matches the information against various sources to identify potential current addresses.
NS&I sends letters to these suspected addresses to inquire if the recipients might be Premium Bond holders. This process has successfully traced over one million customers to new addresses so far. Those who respond to the letters undergo a security verification process to ensure that only eligible individuals receive their rightful money and prizes. In some cases, NS&I discovers that the customer is still residing at the address they have on record, and they also take precautions to avoid tracing deceased customers.
Hunting for Descendants
NS&I has also implemented a new project to trace the families of deceased customers. Often, when a customer passes away, their next-of-kin forgets to inform NS&I about their death, leaving potential prizes unclaimed. Prizes won within the first year after a person’s death can be claimed by their beneficiary and are paid when the account is closed. Prizes won after that are reallocated to the next bond number in the following draw.
Mary’s £150 Surprise
Mary Green, a 48-year-old financial advisor from Gloucester, discovered she had won £150 when she stumbled upon an old Premium Bond certificate in her loft while moving house. Mary was given £10 worth of bonds as a gift from her grandparents shortly after she was born, but she was unaware of their existence as her grandparents had passed away years ago. After entering her holder’s number on the NS&I website, Mary confirmed her win and, upon providing identity verification, received the money in her account within five days.
To check if you’ve won a Premium Bond prize, simply use your Premium Bond holder number on the NS&I website or app. This number can be found on letters or any communication from NS&I, and the winning bond details are updated on the first working day of each month.
If you don’t know your Premium Bond holder number, you can use NS&I’s Tracing Service. Download and print a paper form from their website and send it to their head office in Sunderland. Alternatively, you can contact them by phone or mail to provide your full name, current and past addresses, previous names (if applicable), the approximate year your account was opened, and the rough value of your holding. The Tracing Service can also be used to make claims on behalf of deceased individuals.
The mylostaccount.org.uk website is another resource that can help locate old NS&I details, as well as details of other forgotten bank and building society accounts.
NS&I holds information on all prize winners, regardless of when the prize was won or when the bond was purchased. There is no time limit for claiming your prize. However, keep in mind that unclaimed prizes do not account for inflation, so claiming them sooner will make them more valuable in real terms.
Ultimately, to ensure the smooth receipt of prizes, it’s best to set up automatic payments directly into your bank account or reinvest them into more Premium Bonds.
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