A woman has astonishingly uncovered nearly £100,000 in forgotten savings, enabling her to consider early retirement a whole decade ahead of schedule.
Tara, aged 52, stumbled upon two “lost” pension pots worth a staggering £63,500 and £35,000 respectively, totalling an impressive £98,500.
Her remarkable find was shared on Good Morning Britain this week, where she revealed an eight-year-long search that began when she was just 44, Mirror reports.
The quest for her pensions was prolonged due to the fact that the original pension products no longer existed. She recounted her experience: “When I got through to my original pension provider because my policy was so old, my product didn’t exist any more.
“This all started when I was 44, I’m 52 now and I’ve only just found out what my transfer amount is. One was £63,500 and that was just one of them, I found another one that was £35,000.”
It’s believed that millions in the UK might be unaware of their lost pension pots. A study by PensionBee suggests that approximately one in ten workers suspect they have a missing pension pot valued at £10,000 or more, which translates to about three million individuals across the nation.
PensionBee estimates that there could be as much as £50 billion lying unclaimed in up to 4.8 million dormant pension pots.
The pensions landscape is bracing for a seismic shift as the number of pension pots is set to skyrocket by 130 percent by 2050, from 106 million to a staggering 243 million, according to the pensions service. This surge is attributed to the increasing trend of job-hopping, with PensionBee suggesting that individuals starting work at 18 could amass up to five pension pots by the time they hit 68, and some may even gather over 20 throughout their careers.
The advent of workplace pensions means employees are “automatically enrolled” into new schemes with each job change, leading to a proliferation of pension pots. This can become problematic when paperwork is misplaced or providers are forgotten, making it tough to keep track of one’s retirement savings.
To combat this issue, the Government has been developing solutions, including the much-anticipated Pensions Dashboard. This online platform promises to consolidate all of an individual’s pension pots in one accessible location.
Despite numerous setbacks, the launch of the Pensions Dashboard is finally expected next year.
For those seeking to locate lost pension pots, the initial step is to reach out to previous employers or sift through old documents. If these avenues yield no results, the Government offers a helping hand with its free Pension Tracing Service tool available on its website, designed to assist in the search for elusive pensions.
This free service allows you to search a database of over 300,000 workplace and personal pension schemes. To utilise it, you’ll need the name of an employer or a pension provider.
If you discover an old pension pot, the service provides contact details for pension schemes run by employers, as well as private schemes organised by pension providers.
You can only access the details of your pension savings once a pension firm has verified your identity and confirmed that you have a pension pot with them. The service will not disclose how much money you have in this specific pension pot; you’ll need to contact the pension administrator directly to find out if you have any funds with them.
