Martin Lewis has urged workers to check whether they have lost track of an old workplace pension, saying an estimated £65 billion is sitting unclaimed in 3.3 million forgotten pension pots across the UK.
Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain (GMB) on Wednesday, the founder of Money Saving Expert (MSE.com) said the average lost pension pot is worth around £20,000 and warned that billions more are sitting in dormant savings accounts, investments, Child Trust Funds and National Savings & Investments (NS&I) accounts.
Billions in Unclaimed Assets
Martin told viewers: "You have to realise what a substantial amount of money this is. Remember when we're talking billions of pounds, that's 1,000 million pounds."
Using figures from financial asset tracing service Gretel, the consumer champion highlighted estimates showing there is £65 billion in 3.3 million lost pensions, £4.5 billion in dormant savings accounts, £2.9 billion in unclaimed investments, £1.7 billion in Child Trust Funds and £560 million in NS&I accounts, including Premium Bonds.
Why Pensions Get Lost
The financial expert said people often lose track of savings and pensions after moving home, changing their name, switching jobs or when firms merge, rebrand or change ownership. He said workplace pensions are particularly easy to lose track of if someone has worked for several employers throughout their career.
Martin explained: "You didn't update your contact details. You moved house, you're living somewhere else, you've got married and didn't tell them. If you combine that with pensions, if it was a workplace pension and you've done five, six, seven different jobs, it's very easy to lose track of one of them."
He added that family members may also be able to reclaim money belonging to someone who has died, provided they are legally entitled to do so.
How to Find a Lost Pension
Martin said the first step should always be to look for old paperwork and contact the provider directly. He told viewers: "Go digging through your drawers to find the old paperwork. Contact the provider, contact the pension firm. That's always the easiest way."
For people who cannot find details of an old pension, Martin recommended using the UK Government's Pension Tracing Service. The free service allows people to search using the name of a former employer or pension provider and provides contact details for the current pension scheme administrator.
Martin explained: "You tell it the name of your old employer or your old pension provider and it will tell you who it is now because the pension may have changed, the company may have changed, and how to get in contact with them."
Additional Tracing Options
For lost bank and building society accounts, he highlighted the My Lost Account service, which allows people to search for dormant accounts held with participating providers. He also recommended Gretel, a free online service that works with participating financial firms to help reunite customers with lost assets.
Martin said Gretel can be a useful additional tool because it uses a soft credit search to verify a person's identity before checking whether participating organisations are holding money that belongs to them. He added: "If you're tracing your pension personally, I'd go to the UK service and I'd also go to Gretel, which is free. I'd do them both and see which works best for you."
Steps to Track Down a Lost Pension
- Use the government's free Pension Tracing Service.
- You will need either the name of your old employer or the name of the pension provider.
- The service will not tell you whether you definitely have a pension or how much is in it, but it will give you contact details.
- Contact the provider to check if you have a pension and its value.
It can take a bit of admin, but it could also uncover money you did not know you had.
