Lost pension pots reach £31 billion - how to find your old pensions

The lost pension problem is worsening, with an estimated 3.3 million lost pots, up from 2.8 million two years ago.

This is according to research from the Pensions Policy Institute, which found that the total value of lost pension pots had swelled from £26 billion to £31.1 billion.

The average size of a lost retirement fund is £9,470, rising to £13,620 for the 55-75 age group.

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The analysis comes ahead of National Pension Tracing Day, which is on 27 October. The organisers say that as many as 1 in 20 people could have lost a pension.

Separate research from digital wealth manager Moneyfarm reveals that 29% of Brits have no idea how many pension pots they have, and think they probably have around £13,303 sitting across three "lost" pension plans - yet a massive 79% say they don’t know how to begin tracking them down.

Misplaced pensions are becoming an increasingly big problem, as workers switch jobs and accumulate multiple pension pots due to the government’s auto-enrolment scheme. Workers sometimes forget about their hard-earned pensions and fail to keep track of them, especially if they don’t update their address with their pension provider(s) when they move house.

Today’s youngest workers (age 18) are forecast to have, on average, five pension pots by the age of 68. However, the pension provider PensionBee notes that some people can accumulate a lot more, exceeding 20 separate pensions over a working lifetime.

Becky O’Connor, director of public affairs at PensionBee, calls the amount of money in lost pensions “eye-watering”, and warns it will “reach national crisis levels over the coming years”.

The government is working on a number of solutions to help solve the problem, including pension dashboards and new ‘pot for life’ proposals.

How to find lost pensions

A lost pension pot is defined as one in which the connection between the owner and the pot is currently cut off. However, it’s important to note that this doesn’t mean these pension pots are lost forever, as they are likely recoverable.

Carina Chambers, pensions technical expert at Moneyfarm, says: “Pensions are not easy to keep track of over a lifetime, so it’s quite common for one, if not more, to get overlooked and forgotten about."

To trace a pension, you can contact your pension provider and request the latest account statements or access to your online account. If you’re not sure who the pension provider is, get in touch with your old employer to find out. You could even ask old colleagues to see if they know.

You can also use the government’s free Pension Tracing Service, where you can search your previous employers to help find your pension providers’ names and contact details. You can also phone the service (0800 731 0193, Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm).

The service received 31,505 calls between 1 January and 24 May this year, according to a Freedom of Information request by Hargreaves Lansdown, putting it on track to top last year's record of 63,381.

Gretal is another tracing service, which you can use to find lost pensions as well as lost investments, bank accounts and child trust funds.

Some pension providers, such as Aviva, AJ Bell, Moneyfarm, Standard Life and PensionBee, also offer a free "pension finder" service. Note that you may need to be a customer to use the service, and then move the old pension pots to that provider.

To avoid losing track of pensions in future, make sure you keep hold of old paperwork, employer and pension provider names and policy numbers - and if you move house, tell your pension provider so they don’t lose track of you. If you would prefer to keep your pensions together - rather than having lots of different pots - consider consolidating them in one place.

Check out our guide to combining pension pots to see if it makes sense for you, anything to watch out for, and how to actually do it.