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£100m of premium bond prizes remain unclaimed

In August 2025, we reported more than £100m of premium bond prizes remained unclaimed amid criticism that the government-owned bank which operated the savings scheme was not doing enough to find the winners.

Among the 2.5 million unclaimed prizes were 11 winners of £100,000 - the second-largest prize available.

Critics said the process to trace accounts needed reform as it was too difficult for people gifted Premium Bonds, or those who only ever had paper records.

Operator National Savings and Investments (NS&I) said it had paid more than 99% of the prize-winners since starting its tax-free draws in 1957.

Wills and probate solicitor Patrice Lawrence said she had helped seven people trace accounts including clients, and friends and family.

"It's shocking that a government-owned bank is sitting on nearly £100m [in unclaimed prizes] that doesn't belong to it during a cost of living crisis," she told the BBC.

Our findings in brief

  • UK-wide data showed nearly £100m in unpaid Premium Bonds winnings as at the end of March 2025, broken down by areas similar to counties, disclosed in response to an FOI request. All data were included by NS&I, but in some instances it has aggregated up to the areas with at least 100,000 bondholders. It meant in some cases rather than a county area, the data were at a higher level e.g. Wales (national) or Outer London/Inner London (regional) rather than Welsh county or London Borough etc. This is because NS&I said it did not hold data for all local authorities as they did not all meet its 100,000 Bondholder rule for publishing data: https://www.nsandi.com/get-to-know-us/prize-winner-locations. *When NS&I responded to our request for comment, the unclaimed prizes had reached £103m.
  • There were 6 unclaimed winners of £100k each as of 31 March 2025 - the second-largest prize available - in “Overseas/Unknown”, Avon, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Hereford and Worcester and Outer London – the bond numbers of these winners are included in the spreadsheet. NS&I defined an “unclaimed” prize as a draw more than 18 months ago and which not yet been paid out. The NS&I said in a subsequent press release that as of June 2025, more than 2.5 million premium bond prizes worth over £103 million remained unclaimed. This included 11 £100,000 prizes, 19 £50,000 prizes, 38 £25,000 prizes and 75 prizes of £10,000 (but the bank did not include locations for the bond holders who won these prizes).
  • The oldest unclaimed prize was £25 won in November 1957 in South Yorkshire. NS&I said where two or more prizes were tied at being the highest value or oldest for each area - one was chosen at random.
  • Nearly 23 million people had Premium Bonds accounts worth a combined £130bn, as of 31 March 2025.
  • The value of accounts with no activity for more than 20 years, as of 31 March 2025, was £784m.

What we provided:

  • Total number of Premium Bond accounts as at end March 25
  • Total value of Premium Bond accounts as at end March 25
  • Number of Premium Bond accounts (no activity for 20 years)
  • Value of Premium Bond accounts (no activity for 20 years)
  • Number of accounts who bought in 24-25
  • Value of Premium Bonds bought in 24-25
  • Number of prizes won 24-25
  • Value of prizes won 24-25
  • Number of prizes won 24 - 25 where the winning bond was purchased 24 - 25 (new bond)
  • Value of prizes won 24 - 25 where the winning bond was purchased 24 - 25 (new bond)
  • Number of unclaimed prizes
  • Value of unclaimed prizes
  • Highest value unclaimed prize - value
  • Highest value unclaimed prize - winning bond number
  • Highest value unclaimed prize - winning draw date
  • Highest value unclaimed prize - minimum eligible interest (to 31 Mar 2025)
  • Oldest unclaimed prize - value
  • Oldest unclaimed prize - winning bond number
  • Oldest unclaimed prize - winning draw date
  • Oldest unclaimed prize - minimum eligible interest (to 31 Mar 2025)

Access the data

We produced this story pack and this dataset.

Interviews and quotes

  • Wills and probate solicitor Patrice Lawrence (she/her)
  • Iona Bain (she/her), BBC Morning Live‘s resident money expert
  • Sam Richardson (he/him), deputy editor from the consumer group Which? Money
  • Andrew Westhead (he/him), NS&I Retail Director
  • Melanie Clarke (she/her), who was in a weeks-long exchange with NS&I trying to trace the accounts.
  • Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP (she/her)

Partner usage

The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to the wider news industry as part of the BBC Local News Partnership. Stories written by partners based on this research included:

The report was among the most-read BBC online reports of the day and featured across BBC national and local radio throughout 5 August 2025. The report was covered on TV by BBC Breakfast, and BBC News at 1pm, 6pm and 10pm and by Reporting Scotland: News at Seven. BBC Shared Data Unit senior journalist Alex Homer also carried out live two-way interviews to discuss the story on Radio 5 Live, Radio Scotland, Radio Ulster and the following BBC local radio stations: Somerset, Berkshire, Sheffield, Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Newcastle and WM. Alex also delivered a radio package and explainer for the Latest News Playlist on BBC Sounds, and the reporting was shared on the BBC Breakfast Facebook account with more than 13,000 views, and in the Politics Essential newsletter.

The report was used by BBC World Service Newshour and The Newsroom and Outside Source and throughout the morning on national news summaries including Radio 2, Radio 4 and by Radio 5Live with our interviewees as live guests and with clips from them by Radio 4 – PM. Radio Wales also took up the report as did BBC local radio stations covering London, Manchester, Bristol, Solent, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Hereford & Worcester, Surrey, Oxford, Merseyside, Norfolk, Lancashire, Humberside, Derby, Devon, Suffolk, Northampton, Guernsey, York, Cornwall, Jersey, Sussex, Three Counties, Stoke, Leicester, Cumbria, Cambridgeshire, Tees, Nottingham and Leeds.

Other usage

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£100m of premium bond prizes remain unclaimed

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3791ep6gko

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personal-finance shareddataunit premium-bonds

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