As retirement approaches, tracking down all your lost or forgotten pension pots can feel like a daunting challenge.
It’s a common struggle that Robert Cochran, retirement expert at Scottish Widows, knows all too well.
“People tend to have three questions about pensions: What have I got? Is it enough? And what can I do next?” says Cochran. “If you can’t find your pension pots, you can’t answer any of these questions.
“Knowing what you’ve got is the fundamental pillar of planning for your own retirement, and making sure that you’re on the track for the retirement that you want, because that’s what everything else is built on.”
Delaying the search could come at a significant cost.
“If you put money into a pension but can’t find it, you won’t get the money that you’re entitled to,” says Cochran. “I’ve met people who found £26,000 in pension pots that they never knew they had.”
Here are some simple tips to help you get back on track with the whereabouts of all those pesky pension pots…
Write down your employment history
Start by making a list of all your former employers so you have an idea of how many pension pots you are looking for.
“Look through your career history and then contact the various different companies that you have worked for in the past,” recommends Cochran.
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The HR departments could potentially help you find details of previous workplace pension schemes that you might have been part of.
Use the government Pension Tracing Service
This tool can help you find the contact details for your own workplace or personal pension schemes, but it will not tell you whether you have a pension, or what its value is, according to the government’s website.
“If you’ve forgotten which pension scheme your previous employer had, you can use the government’s Pension Tracing Service which will do all the hard work for you,” says Cochran.
To use this service, you only need to know the name of an employer or a pension provider. However, additional information such as dates of employment, type of business or location can make the search easier.
You can also request contact details from the Pension Tracing Service by calling 0800 731 0175, a helpline which is open Monday to Friday between 10am to 3pm.
“A number of private providers are rolling out pension tracing services as well, that are free to use,” adds Cochran. “But if somebody is offering you a pension review out the blue, be a bit wary about any of that as it could be a scam.”
Download pension provider apps
Once you’ve located the details of each pension pot, it could be useful to download your pensions providers’ apps on your phone to help keep everything in one place.
“The best way to keep track of your pensions is to download the apps from the providers that you’re with so you don’t lose sight of them again,” recommends Cochran.
“All the big companies, like the People’s Pension, Standard Life and Legal & General, have an app now that lets you easily access and update your pension pots from your phone.
“If you have set up biometrics (fingerprint or facial recognition) on your phone and these apps, that will make logging in very quick and easy.”
Consider consolidating them
Consolidating some of your old pension pots can make them easier to manage.
“It’s predicted that most people have around 11 jobs over a lifetime, and people don’t really want to have 11 different pensions, so might want to consider consolidating them,” says Cochran.
“If you have a master trust or a personal pension, moving that money into your workplace pension scheme is usually a relatively straightforward process.”
Apps help make this process very quick.
“Within the apps, there is usually a button which says transfer your pension,” says Cochran. “On apps like Aviva, Scottish Widows, Legal and General and Standard Life, and there’s a bit of tech in the background that processes this consolidation request, and some of them have a 10 working day turnaround.”
However, you might not want to transfer any money from a defined benefit contribution scheme.
“If you have a defined benefit contribution scheme this is quite a different process, so it might be best leaving the money where it is,” says Cochran.
Test out the new pensions dashboards
Cochran highlights that the highly-anticipated upcoming launch of the UK Pensions Dashboards Programme will hopefully eliminate all of this worry and admin in the future.
This will allow individuals to see their pensions information, including their state pension, for free in one place online at a time of their choosing, and will reunite savers with lost or forgotten pensions, according to the government’s website.
“The pension dashboard will have every pension company, master trust, occupational trust, defined benefits and state pensions in its database – and every scheme has a connection date,” says Cochran.
“Almost all of the big ones are connected right now, and the last ones should be in place by the end October this year.
“Once it comes into effect, you will just need to put in your information, use your government one login, and it will go off and find all your pension pots for you.”
There’s also an opportunity to test it out before the public launch.
“They are actually currently looking for 20,000 members of the public to test it out to see if it finds all their pensions,” says Cochran.
He predicts that this service will be ready sometime next year.
“Everyone will be connected by October and currently consumer testing is being carried out, so, if I had to guess a launch date, I would say no earlier than April next year, but I would expect it to be at some point next year,” says Cochran.