Premium Bonds ‘wake-up call’ as five people fail to claim £100,000 – are you missing out? | Personal Finance | Finance
Some 400,000 of the unclaimed prizes belong to people from London, while the south east has the second largest group of unclaimed prizes, with some 347,000 prizes yet to be collected.
Each Bond holder is entered into a monthly draw, with prizes ranging from £25 to a £1million jackpot.
NS&I increased the prize fund rate in September from 1.40 percent to 1.20 percent, with the odds of winning improving to 24,000 to one.
Ian Ackerley, NS&I’s chief executive, said at the time: “With over 22 million holders, Premium Bonds are the nation’s favourite savings product and are more popular than ever.
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On a recent episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show, the financial journalist explained how much a person with “typical luck” would win relative to how many Bonds they had.
He said that for an investment of £1,000 in Bonds, a typical person would not win any prizes.
He explained: “At £50,000, you would win a grand which is two percent and the top easy access account for all is 2.55 percent.
“So with typical luck, Premium Bonds win less than the easy access and they win a lot less than fixed accounts.
“Most people with money in Premium Bonds don’t do it for the short term, they do it for the long term.”
