Why do Premium Bond winners never seem to be from the Channel Islands or Isle of Man?
Why do Premium Bond winners never seem to be from the Channel Islands or Isle of Man?
- The Channel Islands and Isle of Man are grouped into ‘overseas’
- Due to NS&I rules, they cannot report winners from Isle of Man or Channel Islands
When the winners of the Premium Bonds awards are announced each month, why are no Channel Islands or Isle of Man winners ever mentioned?
I noticed in your monthly list of winners that there is never a prize winner from these places.
Given the number of wealthy people who call these places home, you’d think more grand prize winners would be announced who are based there. Via email.
Premium Bonds are one of the most popular savings products in the country and require a minimum amount of £25 to get started
Helen Kirrane from This is Money answers: Since there are no rules that mean those who live on these islands cannot buy Premium Bonds, it seems like a mystery.
To hold Premium Bonds if you live in the Isle of Man or Channel Island, NS&I only states that clients must have a UK bank or mortgage account that accepts BACS transfers.
There are no rules or laws that prevent those born or resident in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man from holding Premium Bonds or otherwise being NS&I customers.
A low personal tax rate in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax have made these areas popular with wealthy Britons.
So why are there no listed winners of Premium Bonds in these countries?
The answer simply lies in how NS&I reports the location of award winners.
NS&I set rules when disclosing the location of prize winners to protect identity.
Each customer is assigned to a city, local authority, state or government, default region, and country.
When a winner is assigned to a city with fewer than 100,000 account holders, NS&I will use the hierarchy below until it finds a tier where that area has at least 100,000 Premium Bond holders. These are:
Level 1 Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) City (such as Blackpool);
Level 2 County or Local Authority (such as Lancashire);
Level 3 Government default region (such as Northwest);
Level 4 country (such as England).
But for Premium Bond holders living outside of Britain, NS&I only publishes the country if there are at least 100,000 holders living there. Otherwise they publish the area as ‘overseas’.
The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands fall into this category.
Bounty bond winners
| Price | Area | Value of the bond |
| £1,000,000 | Hereford and Worcester | £50,000 |
| £1,000,000 | Essex | £23,000 |
| £100,000 | Sheffield | £30,000 |
| £100,000 | Norfolk | £49,000 |
| £100,000 | Within London | £49,990 |
| £100,000 | Hampshire and Isle of Wight | £5,000 |
| £100,000 | West Midlands | £50,000 |
| £100,000 | Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot | £10,000 |
Even more August 2023 winners
A spokesperson for NS&I replies: If a £1 million winner came from the Isle of Man, Guernsey or Jersey, it would be reported as ‘overseas’.
This is due to a rule we’ve put in place to protect our £1 million winners.
If the area they come from has less than 100,000 Premium Bonds holders, we will report in the next area where there are more than 100,000 Premium Bonds holders.”
Due to the lower number of bondholders in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man we cannot break this down further than ‘overseas’.
adds Helen Kirrane: Guernsey has just over 19,000 holders of Premium Bonds and Jersey just over 29,000 – together this is much less than 100,000 holders of Premium Bonds, so NS&I would not report this as Channel Islands.
The default value for reporting a winner from one of these territories would be ‘overseas’.
NS&I was unable to provide customer numbers for Isle of Man.
There have been five overseas winners since NS&I launched the £1 million jackpot in April 1994, but NS&I does not disclose which countries or territories such as the Channel Islands these winners resided in.