Lost Pension Pots Seeking Owners
Many people are worrying about paying for Christmas, but few are worrying about finding a lost pension pot. The number of unclaimed pension pots has risen to 2.8m, valued at £26.6bn. It is tricky to keep on top of pension schemes in a long career. Your workplace pension contributions are your money. Are you missing any of your pension pots?

It’s big money
Lost pension pots are worth on average £9,500 per individual. From mid-2018 to mid-2022, the total value of lost pension pots is worth about £7bn. Often caused by changing jobs and/or moving home. The success of government auto-enrolment pension system has meant that many young people lost track of their pension posts, as they were made unemployed during the pandemic.
Steps for finding a lost pension
- Look through old policy documents and bank statements for the provider. Talk to the pension provider via their website contact details.
- The Policy Detective is a commercial website which is free to trace old pensions. Must have the name the pension company that has your pension.
- If you know nothing about your pension or provider, then use your national insurance number, the name/address of previous employers to access the pension details via the Pension Tracing Service.
The Pension Tracing Service is a free government service. Phone them or use their online directory. Although the pensions industry is improving tracing methods, experts reckon that two thirds of workers have multiple pensions. Around 17% of workers have lost track of two pots and another 6% have lost track of three or more pots.
The future
A good DWP (government) idea is to create pensions dashboards, which would aim to provide a single point of access for people to see all their pension pots, and their State Pension in one place. Let’s hope this happens, as many good government initiatives never germinate.
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Sources:
https://www.ft.com/content/9137fcc2-eef3-435a-a55e-0219112c940b?shareType=nongift
https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/tracing-and-finding-lost-pensions#:~:text=The%20Pension%20Tracing%20Service%20is,online%20directory%20for%20contact%20details.
https://www.pensionspolicyinstitute.org.uk/sponsor-research/research-reports/2022/2022-10-27-briefing-note-134-lost-pensions-2022-what-s-the-scale-and-impact/
Date: 13 February 2023 by Max Robinson