Martin Lewis has urged pensioners to check for lost pensions, revealing that an estimated £30 billion in unclaimed pension savings is held by UK workers. With an average of £10,000 per missing pot, around 3 million people could be eligible to reclaim funds they have lost track of.
Why pensions get lost
The government reports that people have held an average of 11 jobs during their working life, meaning they may have multiple workplace pensions to monitor. Speaking on his ITV Money Show Live, Mr Lewis explained that one viewer discovered a lost pension worth £45,000.
He said: “You think that number’s big? Let me give you another number on this. There’s over £30 billion, £30,000 million of pensions are thought to be lost. An average of just under £10,000 each.”
He added: “The reason people lose track: you didn’t update your contact details. You might have changed house. You might have changed name if you got married, for example. You also might have changed jobs and forgotten it just like Nick was talking about. It’s so common. Or your pension provider might have merged or been renamed.”
Free ways to trace pensions
The government offers a free online service at www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details. Individuals enter their former employers’ details into the online database and receive contact details for pension schemes they may have paid into.
Mr Lewis added: “So, how do you find your lost pension for free? Well, if you got your paperwork, dig out your old paperwork and try contacting your old employers first. If you don’t have any luck, go on to the pension tracing service on gov.uk. It contains 200,000 pension schemes.”
He continued: “Really good, especially if you look at your old pension scheme and it doesn’t exist anymore. Who’s taken on its assets? Where’s it gone? They’ll be able to find that for you. You get the details. You contact the pension firm to get reconnected. You will of course need ID. If you still don’t have any luck or you can’t remember your details, then there is gretle.co.uk. It will go onto your credit files, do a soft search—so that means it doesn’t affect your credit score in common parlance—and will match your old address to any lost assets like bank accounts, shares, and pensions. It’s free to use. It’s funded by financial firms.”
Success stories and impact
Mr Lewis explained that most big financial firms are given a duty to try and reconnect people with their lost assets. Instead of doing it themselves, they subcontract Gretel to do it for them, which is why it’s free. Once signed up, it rechecks every 14 days.
He said: “So, especially those of you in your 40s, 50s, 60s who’ve worked at lots of different firms, this is massively worth doing. You might have a 45 grand pension out there. In fact, had one guy had over £100,000 of pension be found.”
When the government scheme was launched, one user said: “There was one employer who I worked for about 30 years ago and I knew I had a pension with them of some sort. But as it was so long ago, I had just lost track of it. I used the Pension Tracing Service in early 2016 and within two weeks I managed to trace a £10,000 pension with Aviva. I had actually put off trying to trace my pensions because I thought I would need lots of details. But when I got round to doing it I was shocked how easy it was.”
