Why do premium bond winners never seem to come from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man?
Why do premium bond winners never seem to come from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man?
- The Channel Islands and Isle of Man are divided into “Overseas Islands”.
- Due to NS&I rules they cannot report winners from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands
When announcing the winners of the Premium Bonds prizes each month, why are no winners from the Channel Islands or Isle of Man ever listed?
I noticed in your monthly list of winners that there is never an award winner from these places.
Given how many wealthy people call these places home, you’d think there would be more major award winners to be announced based there. By email.
Premium bonds are one of the country’s most popular savings products and require a minimum of £25 to get started
Helen Kirrane of This is Money responds: Considering that there are no rules stating that residents of these islands cannot buy Premium Bonds, it seems like a conundrum.
To hold premium bonds if you live in the Isle of Man or Channel Islands, NS&I simply states that customers must have a UK bank or building society account that accepts BACS transfers.
There are no rules or laws that would prevent those born or residing in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man from holding Premium Bonds or otherwise being an NS&I client.
A low personal tax rate in the Isle of Man and Channel Islands and no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax have made these areas popular with wealthy Brits.
Why are there no listed premium bond winners in these countries?
The answer lies simply in the way NS&I reports the location of award winners.
NS&I establishes rules when disclosing the whereabouts of award winners to protect identity.
Each customer is associated with a city, local authority, county or default region, and country.
If a winner is assigned to a city with fewer than 100,000 account holders, NS&I will use the following hierarchy until it finds a tier where there are at least 100,000 Premium Bonds holders in that area. These are:
Level 1 Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) City (like Blackpool);
Level 2 county or local authority (e.g. Lancashire);
Level 3 Government Standard Region (same as Northwest);
Level 4 country (e.g. England).
But for premium bondholders living outside the UK, NS&I only publishes the country if at least 100,000 bondholders live there. Otherwise, they publish the area as “overseas”.
The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands fall into this category.
Premium Bond Winner
| 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 | Inner 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 |
More winners from August 2023
Check out the list of winners in August 2023
A spokesman for NS&I responded: If a £1million winner came from the Isle of Man, Guernsey or Jersey he would be reported as ‘overseas’.
This is due to a rule we put in place to protect our £1m winners.
If the region they are from has fewer than 100,000 premium bondholders, we will report in the next highest region where there are more than 100,000 premium bondholders.”
Due to the smaller number of bondholders in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, we are unable to break them down beyond ‘overseas’.
Helen Kirrane adds: Guernsey has just over 19,000 premium bond holders and Jersey just over 29,000 – combined that’s well under 100,000 premium bond holders, so NS&I would not report this as Channel Islands.
The default setting for reporting a winner from any of these territories would be Overseas.
NS&I could not provide customer numbers for the Isle of Man.
There have been five foreign winners since NS&I launched the £1million jackpot in April 1994 – but NS&I does not disclose which countries or territories such as the Channel Islands these winners lived in.