Martin Lewis has issued guidance for anyone who may have lost track of savings accounts, pensions, or Premium Bonds. Millions of unclaimed pension pots remain dormant across the UK, often because people switched employers and failed to update their contact details.
The same applies to savings, with billions of pounds sitting in forgotten UK bank accounts. Appearing on Good Morning Britain, the personal finance expert explained that these funds can be located relatively easily using free online resources.
First Steps: Check Old Paperwork
Lewis said: 'First thing sounds obvious. If you got the old paperwork, contact the provider. Contact the pension firm. That's the first step and that's always the easiest way. So, go through digging through your drawers if you like to find the old paperwork.'
Pension Tracing Service
For pensions, there is an official government service. Lewis explained: 'Now, the way this works is you go to gov.uk. You look at the pension tracing service. What you can do there is 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. Once you do get in contact with them, they'll want some ID, but that's how you start to reclaim your pension.'
Visit the Gov website to locate contact details for your old pension.
Tracing Lost Savings Accounts
For missing savings accounts, it is estimated that up to £75 billion could be held in lost bank and building society accounts. Lewis recommended using mylostaccount.org.uk, a unified tracing website set up by trade bodies.
He said: 'If it's a bank account, savings, premium bonds through NS&I or other NS&I things and some forms of investment, then there's a unifying tracing website called mylostaccount.org.uk set up by a collection of trade bodies. What you do there is you put your details in and then it's got a list of banks and building societies and you tick all those you want it to check whether you had money in. So if you're not sure, tick as many as you need to do and then it will put your details to those organizations and then a few weeks later they will come back to you if you've got any money there. The only problem with that one is there's a technical term of what defines it being lost, which is basically it's been inactive and they've not had any contact from you.'
Lewis noted that very recent accounts might not yet appear in that database.
Using the Gretel Service
He also recommended the Gretel website as an alternative. He said: 'Now what Gretel does is effectively lots of financial organizations they have a duty to try and reconnect you with their money but it's expensive to do so they subcontract Gretel to do it for them. Gretel is free with it you go into it you give it your details it does a soft search on your credit file so you don't have to tell it "I think this was my old pension provider. I think this was my old bank account savings provider." It knows who you are and it goes and works with all the companies who are registered with it to try and reconnect you with all the different ones. It's sort of a catch all service. It's far quicker. It's easier. It comes back. The problem, it only works with the companies it works with. So, it's not as comprehensive as these two, but it's a lot easier.'
Access the Gretel service by visiting their website.
