The 31st October marks National Pension Tracing Day

From time to time we have a client that gets in touch with us, as they have been told they have a pension plan that they knew nothing about, and they need some help in deciding what to do with the plan. This is typically where they have contracted out of the earnings related part of the state pension scheme, but values in excess of £100,000 are not unheard of. A happy event indeed, but how many of us have pensions where the provider no longer has our contact details. According to statistics provided by pension providers, only 1 in 25 of us consider telling the pension provider when they move home. Research commissioned by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) estimates that around 1.6m pension plans worth £19.4 billion remain unclaimed.

Typically an individual will move house 8 times during their life and rarely think of telling their pension providers, so perhaps it is not surprising that so many funds get left behind. With greater social mobility the government predict there may be as many as 50m dormant and lost pensions by 2050.

Dr Yvonne Braun, Director of Policy, Long-Term Savings and Protection at the ABI said:

“During the lockdown many of us have been focussing on those jobs that never get done, so now is the perfect opportunity to check all your financial information is up to date with the correct address. It is simple to do. All you need is to check the address on your last annual statement or log in to your provider’s website. Don’t worry if you don’t have this information, we have a guide on our website to help track your insurance and pension policies and some tips on responding to tracing letters, along with our members’ contact details.

“Long-term savings providers will continue to work hard to reunite people with their lost money. People deserve all the cash they are entitled to. To ensure more people than ever are reconnected we will continue to work with Government to explore ways data can be used to verify customer addresses.”

Help to track your insurance and pension policies and some tips on responding to tracing letters can be found on the ABI website.

As no two situations are alike, we recommend having a no obligation initial chat with one of our Directors and Chartered Financial Planners – Grant Farnell or David Torkington to see if we can help.