Up to £77BILLION sitting in forgotten accounts – how to claim back your share
BRITS are missing out on up to £77billion that's sitting in forgotten accounts, research has revealed.
The money has been left in places such as bank accounts and pensions as well as unclaimed lottery wins and lost insurance policies, but there are ways to claim back your share, even years later.
Carl Drummond, senior wealth planner at life insurance company Sanlam UK, has shared his best tips with The Sun.
If you think some of the forgotten money could be yours, the seven steps and places below are your best chances of getting an unexpected boost to your piggy bank.
Old bank and building society accounts
As we're less loyal to banks and building societies, this has increased the risk of losing money as we switch.
In fact, there is around £850million sitting unclaimed in British accounts, according to the Money Advice Service.
Luckily, it's easy to check using the free online service called .
It covers over 30 banks and all 44 UK building societies and it will help you trace any lost personal accounts.
It is particularly useful in instances where a bank or building society has closed or merged.
Banks and building societies say they aim to respond within three months.
Lottery wins
In September, there were almost £12million in unclaimed National Lottery prizes, but all prizes have to be claimed within 180 days - roughly six months.
To check whether you have won an unclaimed lottery prize, go to the , click on the ‘Check results’ tab and you will find a section on unclaimed prizes.
This lists any large unclaimed prizes and the site allows you to input numbers for Lotto, EuroMillions, ThunderBall, Lotto HotPicks and EuroMillions HotPicks.
After 180 days, any unclaimed prizes go to fund National Lottery Projects.
Child Trust Funds
Millions of parents could be missing out on up to £1,000 stashed away in a Child Trust Fund in their child's name.
Children born between 2002 and 2011 were given a government bonus of £250 each through the tax-free scheme when they were born, and then another £250 when the child reached the age of seven.
Lower income families would receive double the amount - adding to up to £1,000 in savings.
Yet millions have been classified as "addressee gone away", meaning they have not been claimed.
As a result, as much as £1billion could be lost, according to The Share Centre.
To find out if you, or more accurately your child, might be one of them, submit a request via the website.
You’ll need a Government Gateway ID, which you will already have if you submitted a tax return.
HMRC will then get back to you, usually within 15 days.
Lost insurance policies
Life insurance policies are also easily forgotten about as you can hold them for many years.
In fact, there is £2billion languishing in unclaimed life insurance, estimates Unclaimed Assets UK, which helps to trace lost money.
To find out if a deceased person had a life insurance policy, it can be helpful to go through old bank statements or cancelled cheques to see if any premiums were paid.
Another way to claim your share is by contacting the people who dealt with their legal or financial matters and even past employers.
Or it could be worth checking the Unclaimed Assets Register, although this costs £25 per search.
It will help if you know the name of the insurance company, but if the firm name doesn't exist then you could try the Association of British Insurers or .
Pensions
We have an average of 11 jobs during our working lives, which makes it easy to lose track of employee pensions.
In fact, savers lose up to £300 a year from their pensions due to frequent job moves.
Meanwhile, personal pensions can get lost when you move house, change your name or don't update your personal details.
No wonder then that there is currently more than £5billion in forgotten pension schemes in the UK, according to the Pension Tracing Service.
But there are ways you can track this money down - is free and impartial, and you can start the process online, although you will then be sent documents which you need to sign in order for it to search on your behalf.
Or you could also try the , which is another free service providing lots of useful tips, advice and search tools.
Premium Bonds
There are currently more than 1.5 million unclaimed Premium Bond prices worth more than £60million, according to the NS&I.
The service can tell you if you hold any Premium Bonds which you may not have been aware of.
That could be useful to know, but most people will want to find out if those missing Premium Bonds have won a prize over the years.
To find out whether you hold a prize-winning number you should visit and fill in the online form.
NS&I says it will respond within one month.
Note that any Bonds bought more than 30 years ago are likely to be individually numbered – to get a bond holder’s number you will need to write to NS&I at Glasgow, G58 1SB.
Investments
If you think you've bought shares in a company, but you have no record of them and cannot find the share certificates, you can check by applying directly to any or all of the three main company registrars – Capita, Computershare and Equiniti.
They will search their records for free but will charge you a fee for issuing a replacement certificate.
Alternatively, the or the might be able to help.
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