National Savings and Investments (NS&I) says that even though it contacts every winner, sometimes people have moved house or the letter got lost in the post. With five unclaimed prizes worth £100,000 and nine worth £50,000, it pays to find out if you’ve won.

More than two million Premium Bond prizes worth a combined £79.4 million remain unclaimed, NS&I said, although 1,709,460 of them are worth £25, rather than the main jackpot prizes.

But there’s no time limit to make your claim. All you have to do is log into the site to view your prize history or to use the  prize checker to see if you have any surprises in store. (You can also call or write to get the search process started.)

Prizes are then sent to a home address as a warrant because the NS&I doesn’t send unclaimed prizes directly to personal bank accounts.

Unclaimed prizes across the UK

Unclaimed prizes were due to people thought to be in places such as Manchester, Lothian, Surrey and Inner and Outer London. Some winners were registered as being overseas for unclaimed prizes totalling £10,005,250.

The oldest unclaimed prize was from November 1957.

At the end of September, YourMoney.com reported that NS&I had increased the Premium Bonds prize fund rate and improved the odds of winning.