Billions of pounds of pension money is languishing unclaimed – millions of pots are lost, which could be like buried treasure worth thousands of pounds for each person
- The ‘Great Pension Treasure Hunt’ – find your old pensions.
- National Pension Tracing Day is this Sunday 30 October.
- Nearly 3 million unclaimed pension pots could be worth well over £20billion waiting to be found.
- National Pension Tracing Day – Sunday 30th October – aims to reunite people with their lost pensions to help them enjoy a better retirement.
Many Britons are unaware they may have thousands of pounds that could help them boost their retirement funds as they battle the current cost-of-living crisis. There could be well over 1 million people in line for a windfall, who don’t yet know about their ‘buried treasure’. The estimates vary, but the Association of British Insurers (ABI) suggests there are around 1.6 million unclaimed pension pots in the UK which could be worth £19 billion. Recent Pensions Policy Institute figures suggest there could actually be as much as £26.6 billion in these lost pots. The figures suggest nearly 3 million pension funds are unclaimed and around 1 in 30 Britons could have an average of £9,000 – £13,000 squirreled away somewhere without realising, which could help boost their retirement spending.
People lose track of their pensions due to changing jobs, moving homes, or their former employers changing addresses: If you have moved employers, moved house or your old firm has been taken over, your old workplace pensions may be languishing somewhere, so now is the time to try to find them.
Finding lost pensions can be simpler than you think: That’s what National Pension Tracing Day is for. It’s never too late to try to track down a ‘lost’ pension and this Sunday, with an extra hour on the clock, could be an ideal day to start.
Check out the National Pension Tracing Day website : It has more information and a step-by-step guide on how you can try to find any old or unclaimed pensions you may have and help to boost financial security for later life and also has a link to the tips on tracing your pensions.
We risk sleepwalking into another crisis even after the cost-of-living crisis is over: I do find it worrying that retirement funds are being used to cope with rising costs and more people are pulling out of saving for the future to cope with short-term needs. This is of course understandable, but it could see a huge upsurge in retirement poverty and anyone who opts out or considers withdrawing their money needs to have a plan for rebuilding their pensions later on if possible.
Well done to all those pension firms participating in this campaign: Punter Southall Aspire were the initiators, with the support of Scottish Widows, Aegon, Legal and General, and Standard Life. This year Aviva, Hargreaves Lansdown, Royal London, and Smart Pension are joining the campaign which is partnered with the industry-wide campaign Pension Attention to help Britons find the hard-earned savings they are owed.