NS&I bereavement: how to claim savings, Premium Bonds and investments after a death

Does Tell Us Once notify NS&I?

No. Tell Us Once passes a death to HMRC, DWP, the Passport Office, DVLA, the local council, Veterans UK, Social Security Scotland and a range of public sector pension schemes. NS&I sits outside that network, so you have to contact it separately whether or not you used Tell Us Once when you registered the death. NS&I has said it is exploring closer alignment with Tell Us Once, but for now it is not part of the service.

This catches families out, because NS&I products are common. There are over 22 million Premium Bond holders in the UK, and plenty of those people also hold a Direct Saver, a Direct ISA or savings certificates that nobody thinks about in the first fortnight.

How do you find out if someone held NS&I savings or Premium Bonds?

Start with the paperwork. Prize letters, annual statements and any post from NS&I will confirm what the person held. NS&I's correspondence address is Sunderland SR43 2SB, though older paperwork can show earlier addresses. Bank statements come next, because interest payments and transfers from NS&I accounts show up on them.

If you find nothing, call NS&I on 08085 007 007 and ask whether an account exists. The line has an automated service around the clock, and you can speak to someone from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm at weekends, although the team is closed on bank holidays. The call is for confirming what was held. The bereavement claim itself still has to go in on the form.

My Lost Account is the other route. It is free, and it brings together the tracing schemes of UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and NS&I into a single application form. It traces lost NS&I products, including old Post Office Savings Bank accounts, alongside banks and building societies. Where you already know the account or bond numbers, My Lost Account tells you to approach NS&I directly instead. NS&I's own tracing service handles that, and NS&I says it "is free to use and there are no time limits when making a claim".

Need help finding and closing accounts? Legacy Trail can take the search and the notifications off your hands.

How do you claim Premium Bonds after death?

You claim by completing NS&I's bereavement form, online or on paper, and the same form covers every NS&I product the person held. NS&I says the first step is to make a claim, "which can be done online, without needing to create an online account". The claim is what starts the process, so a phone call on its own will not do it.

The form asks for the following.

• Personal details: the deceased's full name, address, date of birth, and date and place of death.

• Previous names and addresses: all previous names, including a maiden name, and any previous addresses.

• NS&I products: the account types you believe were held, with account numbers if you have them, which are not essential.

• Your own details: your name, your relationship to the deceased, and your authority as executor, administrator or next of kin.

• Repayment details: the bank account NS&I should pay the money into.

If you do not have every account number, submit what you have anyway. NS&I searches for accounts matching the deceased's details and confirms what it finds. The form is built to identify holdings from personal details alone.

Include your authority as executor or administrator when you submit. If the role is new to you, what an executor of a will does sets out the wider duties.

NS&I tells you what supporting documents it needs once it has your form, including a grant of representation where one is required. If you post original documents, enclose a covering letter asking for them back by recorded delivery, and use a secure service to send them.

Do you need probate to claim Premium Bonds after death?

Not always. NS&I may ask for a grant of representation before releasing funds where the deceased's total NS&I holdings come to £5,000 or more. It also reserves the right to ask for one at any value, and it confirms what it needs once it has your completed form.

• £5,000 or more in total NS&I holdings: the point at which NS&I may ask for a grant of representation.

• Under £5,000: often repaid without a grant, though NS&I can still ask for one.

• No will: letters of administration do the same job, and NS&I treats that grant like a grant of probate.

Submit the claim even if you do not yet have a grant, because starting early shortens the wait. If a grant turns out to be needed, how to apply for probate walks through the application.

How long do NS&I bereavement claims take?

NS&I's usual standard is to respond to a bereavement claim within 14 days. Response times stretched to eight weeks over the spring and early summer of 2026, which NS&I puts down to the more thorough tracing process it introduced after the failures described below, and it has since added staff and says it expects to be back within the 14-day standard for new claims by the end of October 2026. Its claim page still says the first letter will arrive within eight weeks, so that remains the sensible figure to plan the rest of the estate around.

If you have heard nothing after that, call NS&I on 08085 007 007 and chase the claim, which works better than waiting. If you are still unhappy once NS&I's own complaints process has finished, you may be able to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

What happens to Premium Bonds on death?

Premium Bonds cannot be transferred to a new owner, so NS&I repays them at full face value to the deceased's estate. What the executor controls is the timing.

The bonds can stay in the monthly prize draw for up to 12 months from the date of death, in the holder's own name, if that is what the executor wants. NS&I offers this as an alternative to repaying them straight away, and the executor can ask for repayment at any point instead. Any prizes won in that window belong to the estate and are paid by warrant to the person entitled to the money. Prizes won before the claim is completed are held by NS&I and released once it goes through.

That 12 month window is worth planning around where the holding is substantial. What happens to Premium Bonds when someone dies covers the prize draw rules and the cash in decision in full.

Can you transfer Premium Bonds to another person?

No, you cannot transfer Premium Bonds to another person, in life or on death. Some other NS&I products can be transferred, which matters where a surviving spouse or civil partner wants to keep a fixed rate or term.

• Premium Bonds: cannot be transferred, repaid at full face value to the estate.

• Direct Saver: cannot be transferred, repaid in full including accrued interest.

• Direct ISA: cannot be transferred to a new holder, and must be repaid.

• Green Savings Bonds, Guaranteed Growth Bonds, Guaranteed Income Bonds, Income Bonds, Index-linked Savings Certificates and Fixed Interest Savings Certificates: can be transferred to a new owner instead of being cashed in.

All NS&I accounts carry on earning interest until they are closed. Premium Bonds do not earn interest at all, which is the reason the prize draw question matters. Every transfer still runs through the bereavement claim, and NS&I adds any further holdings it identifies to the ones you name.

What happens to an NS&I ISA when someone dies?

An NS&I Direct ISA cannot be transferred to a new holder. Where the deceased was married or in a civil partnership and living with their spouse or civil partner at the time of death, the survivor can claim an Additional Permitted Subscription. That is an extra one off ISA allowance on top of the annual limit, set at the higher of the value of the ISA at the date of death or its value when it stops being a continuing account.

The allowance is separate from the bereavement claim and has to be arranged with an ISA provider. For cash, the survivor has three years from the date of death, or 180 days after the administration of the estate is complete if that is later. It lets them keep the same level of tax sheltered savings even though the account closes. The same rule applies to ISAs held elsewhere, and what happens to an ISA when someone dies covers the detail.

Were estates underpaid in the 2026 NS&I tracing error?

Some were. NS&I's bereavement claims process had in some cases failed to identify every product held by a customer who had died, which left estates underpaid, and NS&I changed the process in January 2026 so that current and new claims are not affected.

In its May 2026 update NS&I said up to 34,000 estates, with a total value of around £367 million, had been affected, which is down from its March estimate of 37,500 claims worth £476 million because the numbers narrowed as the review went on. It began writing to the legal representatives of affected estates with holdings of £10 or more on 27 May, has been sending letters weekly since, and expects to finish contacting estates during 2027. Each estate is repaid in full, plus the higher of the interest accrued since the error or the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point.

The government has confirmed a full inheritance tax exemption for the money returned to affected estates, and executors will not be liable for the income tax that would normally be due on interest accrued before death or during the administration period. NS&I will also consider claims for reasonable costs an estate runs up because of an unexpected repayment, on a case by case basis.

Families, beneficiaries and executors do not need to do anything, because NS&I is contacting estates directly and each letter includes a dedicated phone number. If a letter or message claiming to be from NS&I arrives unexpectedly and anything about it feels wrong, call NS&I on 08085 007 007 rather than using any contact details in the message itself.

Where do NS&I savings fit in the rest of the estate?

Every NS&I holding counts towards the value of the estate. You need a confirmed balance from NS&I before you can complete the IHT400 or a probate application accurately, and how to value an estate for probate explains how the figures fit together. Because NS&I's response times have run long through 2026, send the claim at the same time as you notify the banks.

NS&I accounts sit apart from current accounts and ISAs held with commercial banks, and those providers each run their own bereavement process. The who to notify when someone dies list covers government departments, financial providers, utilities and digital accounts in one place.

For free, impartial guidance on money after a bereavement, MoneyHelper and Citizens Advice both offer support, and GOV.UK covers the wider process in its after a death section.