Hunt for £43m premium bond winners

If you haven’t checked your premium bonds in a while, today may be your lucky day. Almost 900,000 premium bond prizes worth more than £43m have been left unclaimed, according to National Savings and Investments (NS&I).

NS&I says it is currently on the hunt for the winners, two of which are worth £100,000 and a prize of £25 dating back to 1957. There are several other prizes ranging from £25 to £100 dating back to 1960.

The two six-figure sums were both won by women, one in London and one in the Greater Manchester area. It also includes a man from Yorkshire who won £25 back in 1957.

It seems that these prizes fall through the gap when people either forget about bonds or move house without notifying NS&I. The good news is there’s no time limit for claiming your bonds.

How does it work and who’s Ernie?

Premium bonds are run by NS&I and backed by the government. They don’t earn interest as other savings products do. Investors forgo interest to have the chance to win tax-free cash. The monthly prize pot is generated from interest paid on the total amount invested in premium bonds. This is divided up among winners who are selected randomly by a machine nicknamed Ernie! (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment). The scheme was set up in 1956 and the top prize then was £1,000.

At the moment, there is one monthly £1 million prize, five £100,000 prizes and more than 1.75 million £25 prizes. And you don’t need to have thousands of pounds of bonds to win a decent sum: the missing £100,000 winner from London invested just £25.

Although the likelihood of winning the top £1m prize is one in 441.65 million if you only hold £100 worth of premium bonds, you still have quite cushy one in 240 chance of winning any prize.

How do I find out if I’ve won?

You can reduce the chances of a prize being unclaimed by managing your bonds online or opting to have any winnings paid directly into your bank account with a notification email. Not a bad start to a morning.

Top five highest unclaimed prizes (winning bond number and prize)

8LK522839: £100,000

50PB780494: £100,000

3VT019901: £50,000

1JK051177: £25,000

38HZ060777: £25,000

>>>Find out more on the different savings and investments