More than £1 million of premium bond prizes remain unclaimed in Cheshire.

Among the 35,843 unclaimed prizes in the county is one lucky winner of £100,000, drawn in February 2022.

In total, there are £1,407,175 worth of prizes in Cheshire still waiting to be claimed.

The oldest unclaimed prize, £25, was drawn all the way back in 1963.

There are over 35,000 unclaimed premium bond prizes in Cheshire (Credit: LDRS)

Critics say the process to trace accounts needs reform as it is too difficult for people gifted them or those who only ever had paper records.

Each month in the UK, premium bonds are entered into a draw that could see holders win £1m, or smaller prizes of descending value down to £25.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I), the state-owned bank which operates the scheme, said every jackpot millionaire had received their money.

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Since the first draw in June 1957, its Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment – known as ERNIE – had drawn a total of 772 million prizes worth a combined £37bn.

Premium bonds prize winners should receive notifications of their winnings via text message, email or post if they have registered their details.

Some customers, however, relocate and forget to update their details.

Other bond holdings are not registered. For example, people may be unaware they were gifted bonds as children, or they were never given the paper certificate carrying the account numbers.

NS&I retail director Andrew Westhead said the bank recognised bonds purchased before digitalisation 'were much harder to trace'.

Sam Richardson, deputy editor from the consumer group Which? Money, said NS&I could 'make the process smoother' if it joined the government's Tell Us Once service, or the private equivalent, the Death Notification Service, which were 'often overlooked and undersubscribed' schemes aiming to simplify the process of notifying different organisations after a death.