PREMIUM Bonds are a popular way to save due to their lottery-style winning system.
There are currently 2.4million unclaimed prizes up for grabs, worth a whopping £86million.
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.
There are six unclaimed £100,000 prizes and 10 of £50,000 – adding up to more than £1million.
NS&I revealed that four of the six unclaimed £100,000 winners are located in the UK, with another two overseas or in areas with unknown postcodes, according to This Is Money.
One of the half a dozen £100,000 unclaimed prizes was drawn as recently as January last year.
The winner is based in Gwent Valleys in Wales and had a total of £40,525 in bonds at the time of the draw.
Another unclaimed £100,000 prize was drawn in February 2022 and belongs to a winner based in Gloucestershire.
They had the maximum of £50,000 in bonds at the time of the draw.
The two oldest unclaimed £100,000 prizes were drawn in February 2007.
One of these winners, based overseas, had a holding balance of just £6 at the time their winning bond was drawn.
Meanwhile, there are 18 unclaimed £25,000 prizes, 50 unclaimed £10,000 prizes and 107 unclaimed £5,000 prizes.
Most of the unclaimed prizes are located overseas or in areas with no known postcode.
NS&I data shows that 346,713 unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes belong to winners who live overseas, making up 14 per cent of all unclaimed prizes.
This is followed by the South East, which has 318,807 unclaimed prizes amounting to £11,286,925.
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 buy 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.
IF you think you might have an unclaimed prize, the best way to check depends on what info you have about your Premium Bond account.
You’ll have been given both a Premium Bond holder’s number and a National Savings and Investments number.
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.
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:
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 money-sm@news.co.uk.
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