The UK holds an estimated £50 billion in dormant and unclaimed assets — forgotten bank accounts, uncashed Premium Bonds, lost pension pots, old insurance policies, and share certificates that never made it to their owners. Most of it sits quietly in the books of financial institutions, waiting for someone to come looking.
This guide tells you exactly where to look for each type of asset, who runs each search service, and what information you will need to make a claim. It is aimed at people tracing assets on behalf of a deceased relative — though most services are equally useful if you are searching for your own forgotten accounts.
Under the Dormant Assets Act 2022, an asset is dormant when the institution holding it has had no contact with the owner for a defined period — typically 15 years for bank accounts, shorter for some other products. The money transfers to Reclaim Fund Ltd and is distributed to good causes, but the original owner (or their estate) retains the right to reclaim it at any time.
Bank and building society accounts
15+ years of inactivity
Premium Bonds and NS&I savings
No contact after death or 15 years
Workplace and personal pensions
Lost track of employer or provider
Life insurance policies
Policyholder died without notifying insurer
Shares and dividends
Old certificates, forgotten shareholdings
Unclaimed estates (bona vacantia)
Died intestate with no known relatives
Where to search: MyLostAccount
MyLostAccount is the official free tracing service run by UK Finance, the Building Societies Association, and NS&I. It covers more than 70 banks and building societies, including accounts that have since been taken over or renamed. You submit a single application and the service contacts all participating institutions on your behalf.
What you will need:
Results typically arrive within three months. The service is free to use. If a match is found, the institution will contact you directly to discuss how to proceed.
Search MyLostAccount ↗Where to search: NS&I directly or MyLostAccount
NS&I holds over £4 billion in unclaimed products — Premium Bonds that were never cashed, savings certificates that lapsed, and income bonds where contact was lost after the holder died. Premium Bonds in particular are commonly forgotten: they do not mature and never expire, so old holdings from the 1960s and 1970s are still perfectly valid.
For a deceased person's NS&I account:
Where to search: GOV.UK Pension Tracing Service
The average UK worker has eleven jobs in their lifetime and loses track of at least one pension pot along the way. The government estimates the total value of lost pensions at over £26 billion. For a deceased relative, their employer history is often the best starting point.
The Pension Tracing Serviceholds contact details for more than 320,000 pension schemes. It will tell you who to contact — it cannot tell you whether a specific person had a pension with a scheme, but once you have the administrator's details you can write to them directly.
What you will need: the name of the employer, approximate years of employment, and the full name of the deceased. If the employer has since closed or been acquired, the service can still trace the successor scheme.
Where to search: ABI tracing service
An estimated £2 billion in life insurance payouts goes unclaimed each year because beneficiaries do not know a policy exists or cannot identify the insurer. This is especially common with older whole-of-life policies taken out decades ago with insurers that have since merged, been renamed, or had their books acquired by another company.
The Association of British Insurersruns a free policy tracing service. You submit a request online and participating insurers search their records — typically within three months. The deceased's full name, date of birth, and last known address are the minimum needed.
ABI insurance policy tracing ↗Where to search: share registrars
Share certificates found in a deceased person's paperwork may still represent a valid holding — even if the company has since been renamed, merged, or taken private. Unclaimed dividends accumulate on the share register until the holding is either claimed or eventually remitted to the company.
The two main UK share registrars are Computershare and Equiniti. Both run shareholder tracing services. You will need the company name (or an old share certificate), the deceased's full name and address, and a death certificate. The registrar can tell you whether a holding exists and how to transfer it into the estate.
If someone dies without a will and without relatives coming forward to administer their estate, the entire estate — including any bank accounts, savings, and investments — passes to the Crown under bona vacantia. The Government Legal Department publishes the full list of these unclaimed estates openly.
This means the BV list is itself a dormant assets register — every person on it died leaving assets that have not been claimed. If you find a relative's name on the list and can prove your family connection, you may be entitled to their entire estate under the rules of intestacy. The 30-year claim window means many estates listed over the past decade are still open.
Unlike the dormant assets services above, FindMyLegacy searches the BV list with phonetic matching — so spelling variations of a surname are found automatically. You can also set up watchlist alerts so you are notified the moment a new matching estate appears.
Before you start, gather as much of the following as you can. Every service will ask for some combination of these details.
FindMyLegacy searches the full Bona Vacantia list with phonetic matching and email alerts. Register free to search by surname, save watchlist entries, and track your research with case management.
This guide is for information only. Always seek independent legal and financial advice before pursuing a claim. FindMyLegacy is not affiliated with any of the third-party services listed above.