Zarah ChoudharyAhead of National Pension Tracing Day on 27th October, new research from digital wealth manager, Moneyfarm, has found that 29% of the nation have no idea how many pension pots they have.
The research suggested that savers might have around £13,303 across approximately three ‘lost’ pension plans – yet 79% said they did not know how to begin tracking them down.
This echoed figures released by the Pensions Policy Institute, which estimated that as many as 3.29 million pension pots worth £31.1bn remained unclaimed.
The difficulty of keeping track of pension pots led to feelings of worry and frustration for 27%, but 18% were unconcerned, believing there would be plenty of time to track them down later in life.
Only 15% of people informed their pension provider when they changed address.
In comparison, 74% notified their bank, 62% told their doctors, 51% told their local authority and 50% told their energy suppliers.
Carina Chambers, pensions technical expert at Moneyfarm, said: “Pensions are not easy to keep track of over a lifetime, so it’s quite common for one, if not more to get overlooked and forgotten about, with the average person having three lost pensions containing around £13,000.
“If you are one of these people, then the first thing you need to do is learn how to find lost pensions so as to maximise your savings for retirement.
“Combining your old pensions could help you streamline your retirement planning and keep your savings on track, but this is something you need to deal with regularly, not just when you’re getting nearer to retirement.
“You will need to be armed with as much information as possible such as your National Insurance number, date of birth, pension plan number and employment dates.
“You then have the option of trying to track down your pensions on your own or through the Government’s Pension Tracing Service who will tell you where your pensions are and then you can contact the providers directly”.
Moneyfarm has launched a free Find, Check & Transfer service which tracks down and finds lost pensions.
Chambers said: “Even relatively small pension pots could grow in value over time thanks to being long-term investments and benefitting from compound interest.
“It means that if you can find a lost pension, it could be worth a sizeable amount of money, which is why knowing how to find lost pensions is so important.”
