PREMIUM Bonds are a popular way to save due to their lottery-style winning system.
There are currently 2,300,822 unclaimed prizes up for grabs, worth a whopping £80,254,250.
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That’s because hundreds of thousands of winners haven’t picked up their prizes, likely due to not knowing they’ve won or how to claim them.
Premium Bonds are a type of savings account and can be bought from the government-backed National Saving and Investments (NS&I)
But instead of getting a fixed rate of interest like you would from a high street bank, your money is entered into a prize draw each month.
The Premium Bonds prize fund rate reached a 15-year high at the July prize draw, increasing to 4% from 3.70%.
NS&I has revealed to The Sun the top 10 prizes that remain unclaimed and how much exactly they’re worth.
The highest amount unclaimed is £100,000.
It was first won twice back in February 2007 once overseas and again in outer London.
Since then there have been several other £100,000 wins.
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One lucky winner bagged the prize in Greater Manchester in September 2010.
Another hit the £100,000 jackpot in Hereford and Worcester in August 2014.
And a fifth also won £100,000 in Lothian back in June 2013.
The remaining five prizes in the top 10 are all worth £50,000 and have been won between 2007 and 2020.
We have shared the exact codes to look out for to check if you could be one of these lucky winners in our table above.
Further research by NS&I also found that there are dozens of historical prizes still unclaimed too and some date back as far as 1957.
Here are the top 10 prizes left unclaimed:
- £100,000 – overseas in February 2007
- £100,000 – outer London in February 2007
- £100,000 – Greater Manchester in September 2010
- £100,000 – Lothian in June 2013
- £100,000 – Hereford and Worcester in August 2014
- £50,000 – Kent in November 2007
- £50,000 – North Yorkshire in March 2021
- £50,000 – Greater Manchester in February 2016
- £50,000 – Surrey in June 2019
- £50,000 – Berkshire in February 2020
Below we explain how to check if you could be one of the lucky winners with cash sat in the Premium Bonds accounts, plus more about how it works.
How do I check if I have won?
NS&I told The Sun the best way to ensure that prizes don’t go unclaimed in the first place is for customers to have them paid directly into their bank account or automatically reinvested into more Premium Bonds.
You can use the NS&I Premium Bond prize checker online to see if your numbers have come up.
You’ll need to know the numbers of your Premium Bonds which can be found on your Bond record or through your online account.
If you’ve lost track of your numbers you can ask NS&I for them or use its Tracing Service.
There’s also an official app for iPhones and for Androids for checking prizes too, and even an App for Amazon Echo which means you can just ask Alexa.
For this you will need to use your NS&I number rather than each Premium Bond number.
It’s 11 digits long and will be on any communication you’ve had with NS&I.
If you’ve lost track of this, you can contact NS&I and they’ll help you track down your account.
For future wins you don’t always need to check your numbers as you can get prizes under £5,000 paid straight into your bank account, or automatically buying more Premium Bonds.
For higher value prizes worth more than £5,000 NS&I will contact you by post and if you scoop the £1million jackpot, someone will pay you a visit to let you know.
NS&I no longer sends out prize cheques in the post, as of 2021.
What are Premium Bonds?
Premium Bonds are a type of savings account that don’t offer interest payments like conventional accounts.
Instead, you’re given the chance to win a prize worth up to a whopping £1million.
Premium Bonds can be bought from the government-backed National Savings and Investments (NS&I) which also offers a variety of other savings products too.
More than 22million people buy into Premium Bonds.
You can put money in and take it out whenever you want.
You need to put in a minimum of £25 to get started and you can invest up to £50,000.
Each £1 you put in Premium Bonds is an entry into the monthly prize draw.
Because Premium Bonds are government-backed, your money is safe and there’s no risk of losing your cash.
What are the Premium Bond prizes?
The draw is held each month and the winning number is picked by a computer called ERNIE (which stands for electronic random indicator equipment).
There are three kinds of prizes:
- Higher value prizes of £5,000, £10,000, £25,000, £50,000, £100,000 and £1million
- Medium value prizes of £500 and £1,000
- Lower value prizes of £25, £50 and £100
How likely am I to be a winner?
The chance of winning a prize with an individual bond right now is 24,000 to one.
Each bond has an equal chance of winning and the more you buy, the more your chances improve.
Most Premium Bond savers will find that their investments fail to keep pace with inflation, but it’s hard to find savings accounts that beat inflation too.
You can check your odds depending on how many bonds you have and how long you’ll keep them using MoneySavingExpert.com’s helpful calculator.
This makes it easier to see if Premium Bonds are right for you, or if you’d be better off with another savings account.
It’s also worth noting that Premium Bond winnings are tax-free.
Anyone who has used up their annual ISA limit or personal savings allowance could benefit by saving into Premium Bonds.
Meanwhile, NS&I is making a big change to Premium Bonds this month and it’ll boost your chances of winning.
Plus, we’ve previously explained how to find the best savings accounts to suit your needs.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
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