28 Nov 2022
Did you know that it has been estimated there could be about 2.8 million lost or forgotten pension pots out there, worth an average of £9,500 each– over £26.6 billion in total. As many as 1 in 20 people could have lost a pension – so it could be you! It can easily happen if you haven’t updated your address details with your pension company every time you have moved.
What can you do about this? Search through your paperwork to find old pension statements and then contact the pension providers to check they have your current contact details. If you’re struggling to locate a particular insurance company, a number of them have been taken over by other companies over the last few years and you may need to find out which company they are now part of which can be done via a list of companies found at Find a lost pension | | ABI.
Alternatively dig out your CV to locate which companies you have worked for. If you can’t find the pension paperwork, contact your former employer’s HR department to find out further details regarding their pension arrangements. If you can’t find contact details for your ex-employers try going on the Companies House website or the Charities register website if applicable. Alternatively try the government website Find Pension Contact Details.
Once you have details of the pension provider contact them to see if you have a plan or had a plan which you have transferred to a different provider.
Hopefully you have now managed to locate all your pension plans – hooray! It is now worth doing a little bit of maintenance on these plans; check if you need to update your retirement age to reflect when you want to retire. Does the investment strategy (what funds you are invested within) reflect your attitude to investment risk and check that the pension provider knows who to pay your pension fund to if you die before taking your benefits. All of these items can be up-dated by contacting the relevant provider who will provide you with the necessary form or provide details of what you need to do.
The final thing you should do if possible is register for online access to each of your pensions as it will be easier to keep track of them in the future.
If this is all a bit daunting contact an Independent Chartered Financial Adviser who will for a fee be able to do all of this for you. Alternatively, why don’t you ask your employer if the company’s pension adviser provides this type of service as this might be free or available at a discount? At Wingate Benefit Solutions we have launched Engage which is paid for by employers which helps avoid you losing your pensions in the first place by giving you access to them all via one simple log in and we can assist with tracing lost pensions.
If Wingate Engage is of interest than please get in touch or encourage your employer to get in touch.
