Millions of Premium Bonds prizes worth £81million are still unclaimed – how to check if you’ve won

There are also nine payouts of £50,000 yet to be claimed, and 14 prizes worth £25,000.

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 currently over two million prizes worth a combined £81million that haven't been claimed for at least 18 months.

“That includes six 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."

NS&I notifies Premium Bonds prize winners when they win a prize, but there are instances, such as if people move or change contact details without telling NS&I, when they don’t get the message.

This can lead to unclaimed prizes if the saver has opted to get the prize by cheque.

Savers can now opt to get prizes automatically paid into their bank account or reinvested into more Premium Bonds.

More than nine in ten prizes are now paid this way, however, there is still a wealth of unclaimed prizes from past draws.

Earlier this month, NS&I announced the two new £1million jackpot winners for the December 2023 prize draw were from York and Essex.

NS&I shared some details about the unclaimed prizes in these areas.

In York, there are 7,827 unclaimed prizes worth £226,900. The oldest unclaimed prize in this area is worth £25 and is from the July 1970 draw.

The largest unclaimed prize in York is worth £1,000, and there are six of these payouts up for grabs - from between October 1995 and May 2021 prize draws.

Meanwhile, in Essex, there are 55,559 unclaimed prizes with a total value of £1,659,975.

The oldest unclaimed prize in Essex is worth £25 and is from the February 1964 draw.

The largest unclaimed prize in Essex is worth a huge £10,000 and there are two of them, from the December 2007 and March 2016 prize draws.

Customers who think they may have unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes can check by using NS&I’s online prize checker or the prize checker app.

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NS&I updates the prize checker tool each month, on the day after the first working day of the month.

To use the prize checker on the NS&I website, customers need their holder’s number.

This can be found on the Bond record or by logging into one’s account.

It has either nine or ten digits, or eight digits followed by a letter, NS&I explained.

If savers are using the prize checker app, they could also use their holder number.

People who have an NS&I number can only use this to check if they have won a prize on the prize checker app.

The NS&I number can be found on “most communications” they’ve had from NS&I – it’s 11 digits long and starts with an 11, 21, 31 or 41.