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Premium Bond prizes worth £92 million still waiting to be claimed – here's how to check if you're due a share

Piles of gold in a cavern.
Petar Lekarski
Petar Lekarski
Assistant Editor – News & Investigations
17 December 2024

Nearly 2.5 million Premium Bond prizes worth a combined £92 million remain unclaimed, according to the latest figures. Most bondholders now get prizes paid automatically, though this may not be the case if you have older bonds. Plus, prizes paid by cheque may be unclaimed if you haven't kept your address up to date or simply forgot to cash them in.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I), which runs Premium Bonds, has given MoneySavingExpert.com a breakdown of unclaimed prizes by value and region. Below you can see what's unclaimed, plus how to check if you've missed a win.

For more info on how Premium Bonds work – and whether they're still worth it now that the prize rate has dropped – see our Premium Bonds guide.

A total of 2,498,733 prizes are unclaimed

An unclaimed prize is defined as one that hasn't been claimed within 18 months of being won – so there will be other prizes won in the last 18 months that are also waiting to be claimed but aren't factored into these figures. Here's a breakdown of unclaimed prizes by value as of December 2024:

Unclaimed Premium Bond prizes by value

Prize value

Number unclaimed

Total value

£100,000

8

£800,000

£50,000

12

£600,000

£25,000

27

£675,000

£10,000

59

£590,000

£5,000

128

£640,000

£1,000

1,958

£1,958,000

£500

5,902

£2,951,000

£250 (a)

14

£3,500

£100

113,182

£11,318,200

£50

534,886

£26,744,300

£25

1,842,557

£46,063,925

Total

2,498,733

£92,343,925

(a) £250 prizes were issued from June 1957 to July 1974 and can no longer be won.

NS&I says it contacts every winner – this will be by text, email or post depending on the option you've selected – but sometimes prizes go unclaimed for reasons such as letters getting lost in the post and contact details not being updated.

The option to have your prizes paid directly into your bank account was introduced in 2011, so you're more likely to have unclaimed prizes if you hold bonds from before this date – though it's still worth checking even if you've newer bonds.

The total number of unclaimed prizes has increased compared with the same time last year, when there were 2,324,683 unclaimed Premium Bond prizes worth £81,025,600.

Unclaimed prizes across the UK

The map below shows a full regional breakdown of prizes waiting to be claimed, based on the last known home address of the bondholder:

South east England and London have the most unclaimed prizes at 374,925 and 374,350 respectively. Northern Ireland has the fewest at 29,535. 414,292 prizes are waiting to be claimed by people whose address is overseas or unknown.

Unclaimed Premium Bond prizes by country and region

£25

£50

£100

£250

£500

£1k

£5k

£10k

£25k

£50k

£100k

East Anglia

173,799

38,163

9,038

2

452

165

12

6

2

0

0

East Midlands

91,685

21,881

4,902

0

245

74

3

4

1

0

0

London

276,156

80,894

16,072

4

898

286

24

9

2

4

1

North East

44,074

11,902

2,460

0

138

38

3

3

1

0

0

North West

151,529

39,925

8,621

1

446

143

4

2

0

1

2

South East

289,997

68,582

15,232

2

813

264

20

8

3

4

0

South West

154,755

34,544

8,241

0

403

164

11

3

5

0

1

West Midlands

112,937

29,838

6,301

1

321

133

8

6

0

0

1

Yorkshire and the Humber

93,122

23,959

5,043

0

288

88

7

2

2

0

0

Prize value

Number unclaimed

£25

22,247

£50

5,909

£100

1,291

£250

0

£500

61

£1,000

26

£5,000

1

£10,000

0

£25,000

0

£50,000

0

£100,000

0

Prize value

Number unclaimed

£25

103,167

£50

28,485

£100

5,804

£250

0

£500

285

£1,000

105

£5,000

7

£10,000

5

£25,000

2

£50,000

0

£100,000

0

Prize value

Number unclaimed

£25

75,022

£50

18,496

£100

4,067

£250

0

£500

203

£1,000

64

£5,000

4

£10,000

2

£25,000

2

£50,000

0

£100,000

0

Prize value

Number unclaimed

£25

254,067

£50

132,308

£100

26,110

£250

4

£500

1,349

£1,000

408

£5,000

24

£10,000

9

£25,000

7

£50,000

3

£100,000

3

Helen Knapman, news and investigations editor at MoneySavingExpert.com, said: "Moved home over the years and not let NS&I know? Bought Premium Bonds prior to 2011 and not linked them to your bank account? These are just some of the reasons why you should check now if you're due any missing Premium Bond prize wins.

"There are nearly 2.5 million prizes worth a combined £92 million that haven't been claimed for at least 18 months. That includes eight prizes worth £100,000 – an astonishing amount for someone to be missing out on.

"If you've got Premium Bonds, you should also consider changing your settings to ensure any prize wins are always paid directly into your bank account or reinvested to ensure you don't lose out in future."

How to check for prizes

You should have been notified of a prize win by text, email or post, so it's worth checking through old emails, letters and texts just in case you've missed one.

If you can't find any notification but want to check whether you have an unclaimed prize due, you can:

  • Log in (or register) for NS&I's websiteYou'll need your NS&I number, surname and account password.

  • Use NS&I's Premium Bond prize checker tool on desktop. You'll need your bondholder's number to do so – this is separate from your NS&I number.

  • Use NS&I's prize checker app. This is available for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. To access your account, you'll need your bondholder's number or your NS&I number.

  • Write to NS&I. You'll need to include your name, address and NS&I number or bondholder's number. Send letters to NS&I, Sunderland, SR43 2SB.

Don't know your bondholder's number or account number? You can phone NS&I on 08085 007 007 or write to it and ask for a replacement bond record to be sent to you. You should give it as much detail as you can, for example, your full name, address, when and where you bought your Premium Bonds and how much they're worth.

Alternatively, you can use NS&I's tracing service or the My Lost Account website, both of which can track down your Premium Bond details for free. They ask you to fill in info about yourself, including your name, address, an estimate of how many Premium Bonds you hold and how long you've held them.

Won an unclaimed prize? Here's how to get your hands on it

There's no time limit to claims, so you can go back as far as you need to. Here's how to get your hands on any unclaimed prizes:

  • If you're registered for NS&I's online and phone service... you can call 08085 007 007 to start your claim. You cannot claim online.

  • If you're NOT registered for the online and phone service... you need to write to NS&I at NS&I, Sunderland, SR43 2SB. Give as much information as you can, including:

    - Bondholder's number
    - Current name
    - Any previous names
    - Current address
    - Any previous addresses where bonds may have been registered
    - Signature

Prizes will then be sent to your home address as a warrant, which is like a cheque.

Found a missing prize after reading this story?

We'd love to know! Please email successes@moneysavingexpert.com and tell us how you got on.

Plus, share and celebrate your wins (or commiserate your tough luck) with other bondholders in our Premium Bonds winner? MSE Forum thread.

Claiming on behalf of someone who's died

The process is different if the bondholder has passed away. Provided you're legally entitled to the deceased person's savings, you can use NS&I's online form to inform it of the death and claim any Premium Bond prizes or other NS&I savings.

If you're not sure whether they had any NS&I savings or Premium Bonds, you can use the tracing service to check.

How to make sure you don't miss out on future prize wins

If you win a prize worth between £5,000 and £100,000, NS&I may send you a claims form in the post for you to complete and confirm how you would like to be paid. If you win the £1 million jackpot, you'll be visited in person – but always ask to see ID to ensure it's not a scam.

For prize wins of up to and including £1,000, you can:

  • Choose to be notified by email or text and have prizes paid directly into your bank account. You can set this up in your online account (if you have one) or by using NS&I's prize options tool.

  • Choose to be notified by email or text and have prizes automatically reinvested into more Premium Bonds. If, however, a prize win would take you over the maximum £50,000 Premium Bond limit, this will be paid to you by bank transfer or cheque. You can set this up in your online account (if you have one) or by calling NS&I.

  • Choose to have prize wins sent to you by cheque. Here, you won't be separately notified as the cheque counts as notification. You can call NS&I to set this up.

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Unclaimed Premium Bond prizes

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