Brits both in the workforce and enjoying retirement are being urged to hunt down ‘lost’ pensions potentially worth a small fortune.
National Pension Tracing Day, set for Sunday, October 27, aims to shed light on an estimated 3.3 million misplaced or forgotten pension pots, each averaging £9,500 – a staggering total of more than £31.1 billion.
With individual employers typically setting up different pension schemes, those who’ve switched jobs over time might have multiple pension pots scattered around.
Patrick Luthi, CEO of now:pensions, said: “National Pension Tracing Day is a vital reminder for people to take charge of their financial futures. While many people are taking stock of their everyday personal finances amidst the rising cost of living, it’s deeply concerning that the estimated value of lost pension pots across the UK has risen again to more than £31billion – that’s equivalent to £931 for every working person (31.1 billion divided by the working population of 33.37 million).”
He added: “If you’ve been working for a while, it’s highly likely that you will have accumulated several workplace pensions with previous employers and may have lost track or don’t remember whether you had a pension with any of them. It’s essential to check this to get a clearer understanding and complete picture for your retirement planning.
“By tracing your pension savings, you might end up in a better position than you first thought. You could think about consolidating all your pensions in one place to help make it easier to plan for retirement savings. However, this is not for everyone as some pensions have guarantees or benefits you’d lose if you moved them – so you’ll need to check all your pensions carefully.
“We are looking forward to seeing further progress from the Government’s Pensions Dashboard Programme, which will enable savers to see all their pensions savings in one place. We are also keen to continue working with the DWP on solutions to automatically combine savers very small pots into one pension, to support their savings journey.”
National Pension Tracing Day was founded in 2021 with the support of Aegon, Legal and General, Standard Life and Scottish Widows. Further support is now provided by Secondsight, Aviva, Hargreaves Lansdown, Royal London, Smart Pension and The People’s Pension.
More details are at https://nationalpensiontracingday.co.uk/.
