How to find a lost pension

Don’t worry – you’re not alone. Lots of us have pension savings that we’ve forgotten about, never knew we even had or for which we’ve mislaid the paperwork. 

This guide will give you pointers on how to find and recover your lost pension savings. It includes all the information you’ll need to be able to track them down and the kinds of questions you’ll need to ask when you do find them. 

Finally, we’ll explain a couple of things you can do now to avoid losing track of your pension savings in the future.

The average person will have a total of 11 jobs over their lifetime across a number of different employers. This means that people will almost certainly have several pension pots from different employment by the time they retire. With many pension pots to consider, it's much more likely that we'll lose track of some of them along the way as we go about our lives.

It is a situation that is only going to get worse. Job security, which was once expected in most companies, is a rare luxury these days, while the introduction of auto enrolment has seen far more people enrolled in pension schemes than previously. 

Under auto enrolment, employees automatically join their company pension scheme rather than having to actively opt in, as was previously the case. Additionally, employers are now legally obliged to offer a workplace pension scheme. All this means that more people are likely to be juggling several different pension pots as their careers progress.

People are moving house more often

On average, people move a total of eight times during their lifetime, with five of the moves being made before the age of 30. As anyone who has moved house knows, it can be one of life’s most stressful experiences – and it is rare that any move goes without a hitch or something going astray. 

The more times you move house, the more likely you are to lose important documents such as your pension details. Additionally, your pension provider won’t know that you’ve moved house unless you tell them.

The problem is exacerbated by pressures caused by the property market. With spiralling house prices and the average first-time buyer's deposit being £53,414, more and more people are renting. A shortage of local authority housing (which usually comes with long-term letting periods) means that most people are renting in the private sector, where many are on rolling six-month tenancies.

All this means that it’s more important than ever that people update their contact details with their pension provider – but doing so is something that’s easy to forget, with all the stress of moving house. 

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Do you think you’ve got some pension savings you’ve lost track of or had forgotten about? With millions of pounds left unclaimed in lost pensions, you could be right since the value of lost pension pots in the UK has risen by 60% since 2018, but how can you find out more?

Is it lost?

This is the first important question you need to ask yourself. Whether it is a personal pension or a workplace pension, just because you may have found some paperwork indicating you did have one, it does not always mean you still have an entitlement. This is because you may have had a refund of contributions.

For workplace pensions there are several key dates that you need to be aware of that may help you ascertain whether you may have a lost workplace pension.

The good news is that if any of your former employers are still in business, they should have the details of their current and previous pension providers. To track down an old workplace pension, simply follow the steps below.

Start at home

The first place to start looking is at home. Dig out as much paperwork as you can and check to see if you can find the details of any schemes you have forgotten about. Take a look at any old payslips and see if any deductions were made for pension contributions. If so, assuming that  you haven’t subsequently received a refund, you could have some pension savings you've forgotten about. 

Additionally, it’s worth contacting all your previous employers and asking for the details of their pension schemes. They should be able to give you the provider’s contact details and you can contact them directly to ascertain if you were a member of a scheme or not.

If you are still having difficulty tracing your workplace pension, you can use the Government's online pension tracing service or you can call it on 0845 6002 537. You can also use this service to find lost personal pensions.

I now know who my pension provider is. What details will I need to provide?

The more information you can give the provider, the better, because it will make tracing any pension both easier and quicker. Details you should give them include:

• Your name (current and previous, if different)
• Your address (current, as well as where you lived when working for the company in question)
• Your date of birth
• Your National Insurance number
• The name of the company you worked for
• The address of the company you worked for (in case your company had multiple offices or branches) 
• The date you began working for the company
• The date you left the company
• The dates you joined and left the pension scheme (if you know)

The questions you need to ask

It's vital to ask a number of questions to find out more about any pension scheme which you might previously have joined.

Before you do, it is important to find out whether your workplace pensionit is a Defined Benefit or Defined Contribution scheme (personal pensions are Defined Contribution schemes). Defined Benefit schemes are also known as final salary schemes (though there are career average schemes too), in which your pension entitlement is based upon the number of years worked and your salary at retirement age. 

In contrast, Defined Contribution schemes (sometimes called ‘money purchase’ schemes) are based on contributions into a pension pot, with the returns dictated by investment growth. 

If you find out you were a member of a Defined Benefit scheme, your pension provider should be able to give you a very accurate estimate of what you can expect to receive when you take your pension. This is because your pension is based on salary and service and is not subject to the ups and downs of the stock market.

If you find that you have a workplace defined contribution scheme that you had forgotten about, then you need to find out:

Now you have the full details about your lost workplace pension, it is important to take advice as to what you should do with it. There are various options dependent upon the type of pension and the particular provider but options can include leaving it as it is until you reach retirement age or, if you have another pension or pensions, you may choose to combine them into one pot. What you choose to do will depend upon your personal circumstances, lifestyle and retirement expectations.

The sheer scale of unclaimed pension savings in the UK shows how important it is to keep track of where yours are, if you want to maximise your income in retirement. These lost pension pots are worth an average of £9,470, and that could make a real difference to most people’s retirement.

Smart Pension's technology makes finding lost pensions effortless. Their pension finder tool means you can locate lost or forgotten pension savings in a matter of clicks. Their transfer service also allows members to see all their pension savings from previous jobs in one place, and combine them into one place if they’d like to.

Additionally, Smart Pension believes that employers can play a pivotal role in getting the message out to their employees about how they can find their own lost pension savings. To help companies do this, they’ve created an easy-to-use toolkit. It provides a range of different communications, such as graphics, videos, posters, payslip messaging and much more. Visit the Smart Pension website to access the lost pension toolkit. Their short animation on lost pensions provides more information to encourage people to start their pension treasure hunt.