Lost pensions worth billions unclaimed

Over the past six years, the number of lost pension pots has doubled to around 3.3 million. The total value of missing funds now sits at almost £31 billion

A pension pot is considered to be lost when the pension provider administering the fund is unable to contact the saver who owns the pension pot.

How do pension pots get lost?

Savers may have worked for many different employers during their working life with some employments only for relatively brief periods. The small pension pots from these short tenures can easily be overlooked, especially if they arose many years prior to retirement:

• The loss of contact will often happen because of a saver moving house and not updating the provider with a new address.
• If the saver then loses track of the pension provider, there is no easy way for them to be reunited with their pension pot.

Tracing pension pots

The first step to tracing a lost pension pot is for you to contact the employer associated with the pot; this is only an option, of course, if that employer is still active.

If the employer route is a dead end, then there are various pension tracing services available. For example, the government’s pension tracing service will find contact details for a lost pension, such as a workplace pension or a personal pension scheme.

The pension tracing service is, however, only of use if you have the name of either the relevant employer or pension provider. Also, the service will only provide contact details; it will not tell you whether you actually have a pension to claim.

In some cases, a private pension tracing service might be the only option available. They will have access to a large database of information to help with the search.

The government’s service to find pension contact details can be found here.

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