Do you need probate for bank accounts, ISAs and life insurance?

The question gets asked once per institution, not once per estate

Executors expect a single answer to "does this estate need probate". Financial assets do not work that way. The bank, the ISA provider, the insurer and NS&I each decide for themselves what proof of authority they want before releasing money, and they can reach different conclusions about the same estate on the same day. GOV.UK puts it plainly on its applying for probate guidance: contact the financial organisations the person used to find out if you will need probate, because "every organisation has its own rules".

So the job is not to find a magic estate value. It is to list every account, policy and holding, then get a yes or a no from each holder. The answers are genuinely different by asset type, and this guide covers the four that cause the most confusion. It is general information rather than legal or financial advice, and it covers England and Wales. For a quick overall read on your position, the do I need probate checker takes about two minutes, and the wider probate guide sets out what a grant actually does.

Why nobody publishes a reliable table of bank limits

There is a good reason you will not find a trustworthy bank by bank comparison anywhere, including here. A release limit is a commercial risk decision, not a statutory figure. Banks revise them without announcement, and their bereavement teams keep discretion to ask for a grant at any value where the estate looks contested, insolvent or unusual. A table would be out of date within months and would encourage the wrong behaviour, which is assuming rather than asking.

What can be said with confidence is the shape of it. Across UK banks and building societies the limits commonly fall somewhere between £5,000 and £50,000. Three features matter more than the number itself:

• It applies per institution, not per estate. Two £20,000 accounts at two different banks may both be released without a grant, while a single £40,000 account at one cautious bank is not.
• It is usually assessed across that bank's whole relationship. A current account, a savings account and a cash ISA at the same brand are typically added together, so splitting money between products under one roof does not help.
• Release comes with an indemnity. Below the limit, the bank pays out against a death certificate and a signed declaration promising repayment if someone with a better claim later appears. That indemnity is why it can take the risk at all.

Investment platforms behave much the same way. Certificated shares in a sole name are stricter: registrars normally require a grant before any transfer or sale whatever the value, so a forgotten certificate from a 1980s privatisation can force an application on its own.

One hard legal number does exist here, and it explains the pattern. Under section 1 of the Administration of Estates (Small Payments) Act 1965, later increased by order to £5,000, certain government backed and mutual schemes may pay out up to that figure without any grant. High street banks are not on that list, so their limits are pure policy. The bodies that are on it, notably National Savings, are exactly the ones sitting at £5,000.

Premium Bonds and NS&I: the £5,000 line and the 12 month draw

Premium Bonds are the most misunderstood asset here, because people assume they behave like a savings account. They do not. Bonds cannot be inherited, transferred or held on by a beneficiary. They are repaid at face value to the estate.

NS&I's published position for customers who have died is that it may require a grant of representation where total NS&I savings come to £5,000 or more, counted across all its products together, and that it reserves the right to ask at any value. Two further points catch executors out:

• The bonds stay eligible for the monthly prize draw for up to 12 months from the date of death. Prizes won in that window belong to the estate and are paid out once the claim is complete, so telling NS&I promptly does not forfeit anything.
• Because the £5,000 test is aggregated, a modest Premium Bond holding plus an old NS&I income bond can quietly cross the line when neither would alone.

ISAs: the tax shelter survives the account holder

An ISA does not collapse into a taxable account the moment its owner dies. For deaths on or after 6 April 2018 it becomes a continuing account of a deceased investor. Per GOV.UK's ISA guidance, that status runs until the executor closes the account, or the administration of the estate is completed, or the provider closes it "3 years and 1 day after you die", whichever comes first. Until that date there is no income tax and no capital gains tax on what the account holds. No new subscriptions can go in, but existing investments can still be managed.

Two consequences follow. There is rarely a tax reason to rush an ISA closure, which takes the pressure off a stocks and shares ISA that would otherwise be sold into a bad month. But the relief stops at the estate's edge: GOV.UK is explicit that "ISA investments will form part of your estate for Inheritance Tax purposes". The wrapper shelters income tax and capital gains tax, never inheritance tax, and it enters the valuation at full value alongside everything else covered in our guide to valuing an estate for probate.

For a surviving spouse or civil partner there is a separate and easily missed entitlement. The additional permitted subscription lets the survivor pay an extra amount into their own ISA on top of the normal annual allowance, equal to either the value of the deceased's ISA at the date of death or its value when it is closed, per GOV.UK's guidance on inheriting an ISA. HMRC's rules for providers set the deadlines: cash within 3 years of the death, or 180 days after the administration completes if that is later, and a transfer of the investments themselves within 180 days of ownership passing to the survivor. The couple must have been living together at the date of death. Nobody sends a reminder, and the allowance is simply lost once the window closes.

Life insurance: whether a trust exists decides everything

Life cover splits cleanly into two cases, and the paperwork signed years earlier decides which one applies.

Where the policy was written in trust, the sum assured is payable to the trustees for the named beneficiaries. It never becomes an asset of the estate, so the insurer has no reason to ask for a grant or to wait for one, and it sits outside the inheritance tax calculation too. Claims commonly settle in weeks against a death certificate and the trust deed, which is often the fastest money a family sees. Our guide to life insurance written in trust covers how the trust types differ.

Where there is no trust and no valid nomination, the position reverses. HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual at IHTM20012 states that if the deceased is the life assured, the proceeds form part of their free estate and are taxable on death. The money is paid to the personal representatives, the insurer will usually want the grant first, and the payout is added to the total tested against the £325,000 nil-rate band, which is frozen until 5 April 2031. A policy taken out to protect a family can therefore be the single item that creates a tax bill and forces an application that would otherwise have been unnecessary.

Worked example: no inheritance tax, and a grant needed regardless

Nadia Corrigan is named as executor in the will of Gordon Ellsworth, her former business partner, who rented his flat and had no property to deal with. She lists his financial assets:

Asset	Value	In the estate for IHT?	Grant needed?
Current and savings accounts, one bank	£31,000	Yes	Depends on that bank's limit
Cash ISA, second bank	£41,500	Yes	Likely, above most limits
Stocks and shares ISA, platform	£68,000	Yes	Likely, above most limits
Premium Bonds	£22,000	Yes	Yes, over NS&I's £5,000 trigger
Life policy written in trust	£150,000	No	No

The estate for inheritance tax is £162,500 plus modest contents, comfortably inside the £325,000 nil-rate band, so no tax is due and no IHT400 is needed. Nadia applies for probate anyway, and the reason is instructive: the largest sum by far, the £150,000 policy, is the one asset that requires nothing, while the £22,000 of Premium Bonds, less than a seventh of it, makes the application unavoidable on its own.

The fee is £526, payable because the estate exceeds £5,000, per GOV.UK's probate fees page. Sealed copies of the grant cost £2 each ordered with the application and £16 each afterwards, so she orders one per institution up front. She leaves the stocks and shares ISA invested rather than selling it, because the continuing account rules keep it free of income tax and capital gains tax while she waits.

A script for the phone call

Every bereavement team takes this call daily, and the answers only compare if you ask in the same terms each time:

1. What is the total balance across all accounts and products you hold in his or her sole name, at the date of death?
2. Will you release that amount without a grant of representation, and will you confirm that in writing?
3. If not, what exactly do you need: the sealed grant, a certified copy, or your own form as well?
4. Do you aggregate holdings across your group brands, and does this include ISAs and fixed term products?
5. Will you pay the funeral invoice, or inheritance tax under the direct payment scheme, before the grant is issued?

Write the answers against your asset list. The moment one institution says it needs a grant, the decision is made for the whole estate and the remaining answers become scheduling detail. If every answer is a no, you may have a small estate that avoids the process entirely, covered in do you need probate for a small or excepted estate. For the decision across all asset types, including property, see how to know if you need probate, the main do you need probate guide, and our note on joint bank accounts and survivorship. Our executors hub covers the rest of the role.

An estate of ordinary accounts, ISAs and a policy or two is well within reach of a careful executor with a notebook. The point where outside help earns its place is narrower: a policy whose trust status nobody can establish, an additional permitted subscription deadline running down, a share register that has lost the holding, or an institution refusing to release funds you believe sit inside its own policy. If you have hit one of those, we can put you in touch with a probate specialist who will look at the specific asset and tell you what it takes to unlock it.