Are your investments lying among the forgotten billions?

It is an incredible sum. Often people have moved home and failed to inform their insurance company or building society. Sometimes it is a pension from an earlier period of employment that has been overlooked. In other cases, it may mean a win on the premium bonds still lies unclaimed.

Two different definitions are used by financial providers: 'dormant' for no customer activity from three to 15 years and 'lost' for longer than this time frame.

The sums are so vast that the last government enacted The Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008. Where no rightful owner of the money can be traced, providers are encouraged to transfer the funds to a body which will support community projects but withhold a proportion in case a legitimate claimant comes forward.

David Cameron said in July that 400m held in dormant bank accounts could help local initiatives including schools, retraining for businesses or the rehabilitation of offenders. Instead of going to a national body, building societies with assets under 7bn can channel their unclaimed piggy banks to support local charities to reflect their regional nature.

The national scheme is likely to be run by Co-operative Financial Services which has now absorbed the Britannia Building Society.

National Savings & Investments (known as NS&I) hold 1.075bn funds for which no activity has been seen for 15 or more years: accounts 490m, certificates 546m, premium bonds 9m, bonds 2m and other products 28m.

For premium bonds, over 29,000 prizes remain unclaimed in Yorkshire, amounting to a total of over 1.7m.

Unlike national lottery prizes where there is a strict six months limit to claim, there is no time restriction with premium bonds but no interest is added from the successful prize draw.

Ignore calls offering to reclaim money in return for a substantial fee.

There are some shark companies which prey upon the vulnerable or ignorant and charge disproportionate sums. Yet it is relatively simple to check if you have the right to unclaimed funds.

Start with the free service offered online by three key bodies – the British Bankers' Association, Building Societies Association and NS&I.

This is known as 'mylostaccount.org.uk' and is helpful if the provider you are looking for has closed, merged or changed its name.

Building societies hold 115m in dormant accounts. They reunited 60,000 accounts in 2008 (worth 30m) and around 32,000 last year (worth 17m). This was not only through the website but by the individual efforts of societies in writing to members and tracing lost savers.

One such example was 10,000 which belonged to a charity account held by Hanley Economic Building Society.

If an account is interest-bearing, it continues to attract interest and the combined sum will be paid when the money is reunited with its owner.

If a building society query cannot be solved through the website, call 020 7520 5900. For a bank query, call 020 7216 8909.

Banks have reunited 70,000 accounts, worth over 100m through the scheme plus direct approaches to individual banks where the combined figures are unrecorded.

A second source is the Unclaimed Assets Register (known as UAR), part of the Experian group.

It holds some 3.5m records covering such investment products as pensions – both private and occupational – life insurance policies, share dividends and unit trusts.

Over 85 companies have placed their data relating to lost accounts with UAR, which receives 7,500 enquiries annually and reunites about 30 people a month with assets, often from a deceased relative.

James Jones, consumer education manager at Experian, says that the average value of reunited money is 6,000. Almost 90 per cent of its asset information by volume relates to share dividends and life policies.

The share records only relate to companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The UAR fee to check is 25, which covers all addresses. Write to UAR at PO Box 9501, Nottingham NG80 1WD, call 0870 241 1713 or visit www.uar.co.uk. Remember to give as much helpful background information as possible, such as former addresses and any changes of surname.

It is also possible to check on behalf of someone else, providing you are their legal representative.

Pension records are held by a third body, the Pensions Tracing Service (www.thepensionservice.gov.uk or 0845 6002 537).

It claims that over half of adults have no idea how much money they have built up in their pension schemes and a worrying one in six has no information on where such funds are placed.

This means that millions may be losing out on their pension entitlement and so, if in doubt, it's worth checking.

The scandal is that financial providers do not have to publicise their dormant holdings. Most public companies, even FTSE 100 ones, ignore unclaimed dividends and appear happy to place such money back into their assets.

Whilst often banks, insurers, NS&I and building societies make fair efforts to trace the living, there is still no national register to check on all dormant or lost accounts.

It is far more difficult for beneficiaries of wills to access key information.

Over half of all dormant assets belong to deceased individuals but if a beneficiary has no clue where to start, it can be difficult.

One enterprising way forward is the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition, which is an umbrella alliance for UK charities.

This is vital when an estimated one person in seven who dies with a valid will which includes a charity bequest. On average, this totals five per cent of their estate, according to Cancer Research UK.

It is ridiculous that so many financial bodies hide behind the excuse of data protection in not being proactive in establishing one national register which can be consulted and to expand this to the EU.

Appropriate security would naturally have to be in place and the scheme could easily be self-financing.