Why don’t Premium Bonds winners ever seem to come from the Channel Islands or Isle of Man?

Why, when Premium Bonds prize winners are announced each month, are there never any winners from the Channel Islands or Isle of Man listed?

I’ve noticed in your monthly list of winners that there never any prize winner from these places. 

Given the number of wealthy people who call these places home you’d think there would be more big prize winners being announced who are based there. Via email.

Premium Bonds are one of the nation’s most popular savings products requiring a minimum £25 to get started

Helen Kirrane, of This is Money, replies: Considering there are no rules that mean those who live on these islands can’t buy Premium Bonds, it does seem like a mystery. 

To hold Premium Bonds if you are living in the Isle of Man or the Channel Island, NS&I just states that customers must have a UK bank or building society account that accepts BACS transfers.

There are no rules or laws in place that would prevent those born or living in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man from holding Premium Bonds or otherwise being an NS&I customer. 

A low personal tax rate in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands as well as no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax has made these areas popular with wealthy Britons.  

So why aren’t there listed Premium Bonds winners in these countries? 

The answer is simply down to the way NS&I report the location of prize winners. 

NS&I set rules when announcing the location of prize winners to protect identities.

Each customer is assigned to a town, local authority, county or government Standard Region and country.

When a winner is assigned to a town with less than 100,000 account holders, NS&I use the hierarchy below until it finds a level where that area has at least 100,000 Premium Bonds holders. These are:

Level 1 Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) Town (like Blackpool);

Level 2 County or Local Authority (like Lancashire);

Level 3 Government Standard Region (like North West);

Level 4 Country (like England).

But for Premium Bonds holders living outside the UK, NS&I only publish the country when there are at least 100,000 holders living there. Otherwise, they publish the area as ‘overseas’.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands fall into this bracket.  

A spokesman from NS&I replies: If a £1million winner were to come from the Isle of Man, Guernsey or Jersey, they would be reported as ‘overseas’.

This is because of a rule we have in place to protect our £1million winners. 

If the area they come from has less than 100,000 Premium Bonds holders in it, we will report at the next area up that has more than 100,000 Premium Bonds holders.’

Due to the lower number of bond holders in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, we are not able to break it down beyond ‘overseas’.  

Helen Kirrane adds: Guernsey has just over 19,000 Premium Bonds holders and Jersey just over 29,000 – taken together, this is far less than 100,000 Premium Bonds holders, so NS&I would not report this as Channel Islands. 

The default for reporting a winner from one of these areas would be ‘overseas’.

NS&I were unable to provide customer numbers for the Isle of Man.

There have been five overseas winners since NS&I launched the £1million jackpot in April 1994 – but NS&I doesn’t disclose which countries, or territories such as the Channel Islands, these winners were living in. 

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk