What happened

In March, we announced that in some cases where a person’s estate had made a bereavement claim, they didn't receive the full amount owed to them.

This happened because the search process we had used to handle these claims didn’t find all the savings accounts held by someone when they died.

We’ve since made changes to this process to make sure it doesn't happen again.

We’re extremely sorry for this error and we’re now setting out a plan to make sure those affected by this issue are repaid what is owed to them.

When we will make repayments

We’ll start to send letters to those affected from 27 May 2026. The payment will follow soon after.

Letters will be despatched weekly and we expect to finish contacting people’s estates in 2027.

How we will contact estates

We will directly contact the legal representatives of those estates affected with holdings of £10 or more.

We’ll write to explain what has happened and to confirm the amount we’ll repay, plus any interest. Payment will then follow shortly after.

If an affected estate needs to get in touch, there will be a dedicated phone number included on the letter we send to help answer any questions.

We want to reach as many people’s estates as possible. If for any reason we can’t get in touch, we’ll continue to hold a person’s money, and any interest being earned, until the estate can be repaid.

What an estate will be paid

We’ll contact any affected estates with holdings of £10 or more to reunite them with the full amount that should have been returned earlier.

To make sure estates haven’t been disadvantaged by the delay, this will then be adjusted upwards to include either the higher of:

• the interest accrued since the error occurred or
• the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point, in line with Financial Ombudsman Service principles.

Additional costs of a repayment

We know that some people’s estates may have to pay additional costs because of an unexpected repayment.

When we contact an estate, we’ll also set out a process to submit a reimbursement claim for reasonable costs, with these considered on a case-by-case basis.

Tax exemption

The Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell MP, confirmed in Parliament on 19 May that there will be a full inheritance tax exemption for the holdings of the remediation population affected by the NS&I tracing error which are returned to the estates to which they rightly belong.

To further ease the administration of estates, the personal representatives or executors will not be liable for any Income Tax ordinarily due in their role on interest accrued before death or in the administration period.

HMRC is working with NS&I to ensure that executors, personal representatives and beneficiaries do not incur any unnecessary administrative burdens or costs where tax is not due.

Response times for current bereavement claims

If you’ve recently made a bereavement claim, or have an ongoing claim, you don’t need to do anything. The issue has been fixed for these claims.

Our new bereavement claims process is more thorough, which unfortunately means it's taking us longer than our standard 14 days to respond to enquiries.

Our current response time for a bereavement enquiry is eight weeks.

We are very sorry and are working hard to put this right.