Lost track of your pension? Tracing calls hit record high
By Boring Money
24 Oct, 2024
Have you lost track of your pensions? Many of us switch jobs, move around, or just plain forget about old pots! It’s remarkably easy to lose track and these days more and more of us are trying to round up old pensions. As National Pension Tracing Day approaches on 27 October, why not use the extra hour from the clocks going back to trace your lost pensions?
Pension tracing on the rise
A recent freedom of information (FOI) request to the Pension Tracing Service, submitted by Hargreaves Lansdown, has revealed a suite of new data about the demand for pension tracing services.
The new figures show that pension tracing calls are on track to reach a record high. There were 31,505 pension tracing calls placed between January - May 2024 and current forecasts project calls will exceed the 2023 record of 63,381 by the end of the year.
Overall, there have been more than 276,000 pension tracing calls since January 2019.
What is pension tracing?
Ever played "Where's Wally?" with your retirement savings? Welcome to pension tracing - it's like being a financial detective, but instead of looking for a little man in a stripy jumper, you're hunting down the nest eggs you've scattered throughout your career.
Think about it: Every time you've switched jobs, moved house, or watched companies play musical chairs with mergers, there's a chance a pension pot has slipped between the cracks. This has been exacerbated since auto-enrolment started in 2012, with many more of us racking up multiple pots across a lifetime of work.
The good news? Lost pensions are not gone forever. You can track them down, find out how much you had tucked away, and consider next steps such as pension consolidation – that is, the process of rounding all your retirement savings up into one single pot. More on this later.
What are some common reasons for tracing lost pensions?
There are many reasons why someone might seek to relocate lost pensions. Here are some common triggers for pension tracing (note this is not an exhaustive list):
Career changes | Life events | Administrative challenges | Financial planning |
Multiple job changes over working life | House moves without updating contact details | Lost or destroyed paperwork | Mid-life financial review |
Company relocations or rebrands | Finding paperwork after bereavement | Old employer no longer exists | Retirement planning |
Employer mergers and acquisitions | Approaching retirement age | Pension provider has merged or rebranded | Consolidation considerations |
Short-term contract work history | Inheritance situations involving pension rights | Workplace scheme changed providers | Financial advice recommendations |
Why are more people tracing lost pensions?
So why is pension tracing on the rise? Research from Boring Money’s Pension Report 2024 found that 4 in 10 non-retired UK adults hold two or more pensions, potentially making them more likely to lose track of old pots and need to consult a tracing service to find them again.[1]
Emma Douglas, Wealth Policy Director at Aviva, said this can be explained in part by changing employment habits and the advent of auto-enrolment:
As people move jobs, move home, get married, and lose touch with their pension providers, there is now a record number of lost pensions that pension providers are looking to reunite with rightful owners.
The UK pension landscape is evolving
Boring Money has looked a little deeper under the bonnet to find out exactly what’s going on with UK pensions, how the landscape is changing, and why actions like pension tracing are climbing.
General pension engagement has been increasing
Overall, activity around pension tracing and consolidation has been increasing in recent years. According to Boring Money research, 39% of pension holders have taken some form of action with their retirement savings in the past five years – up significantly from 32% in 2022. The number of pension holders completing a consolidation process has also increased to 19% (up from 12% in 2022).
Younger pension holders more likely to consolidate
Breaking this down by age group, we can see that younger pension holders are more likely to pursue consolidation: 26% of 25-34-year-olds consolidated their pots in the past five years, compared to 17% of 35-54-year-olds and 12% of 55+. This may reflect data which indicates that younger adults are more likely to switch jobs and thus amass more pots, with members of Gen Z switching jobs at a rate 134% higher than in 2019 compared to 24% more for millennials and 4% less for boomers.[2]
Men are also more likely to consolidate
On a gender basis, men appear to be more likely to consolidate, with 23% having combined their pots in the past five years (compared to 15% of women). This difference may reflect differing attitudes to pension engagement across the sexes. Whilst the Gender Pension Gap is driven primarily by a difference in salaries amongst men and women, men are also more likely to engage with their pension and therefore are more likely to get better pension outcomes. New research by now:pensions revealed that UK women retire on average with pension savings of £69,000, compared to £205,000 for men.[3]
More adults contemplating pension consolidation
With this increased engagement in pension management, more individuals are thinking about what to do with their retirement savings and if they need to take action. Boring Money’s Pension Report 2024 revealed that 30% of UK pension holders are considering pension consolidation, with 9% planning to do so within the next year.
Consolidating pensions can offer several benefits depending on the situation, but often the benefit that people appreciate most is not having to keep track of multiple pensions, as this makes them feel more in control. Anyone looking to combine their pensions should consider charges, investment choices, and valuable benefits that could be lost, before consolidating. Get financial advice wherever appropriate.
How to track lost pensions
So if you’ve got two or more pensions – or even if you’re not sure exactly how many – how do you go about tracing lost pensions?
Government pension tracing service
The UK government is currently developing a pension dashboard, which will “allow individuals to see their pension information, including their State Pension, for free in one place online at a time of their choosing”.[4] It will also include features such as tracing and educational resources to improve understanding of how pensions work and how to plan for retirement.
The pension dashboard is expected to be released in full by October 2026, but for now, pension holders will need to seek alternative services to track down lost pots.
The much-anticipated pension dashboard should be a major step forward when it arrives, but in the meantime the government’s Pension Tracing Service can help.
The Pension Tracing Service can help you find contact details for:
your own workplace or personal pension scheme
someone else’s scheme if you have their permission
However, it won’t tell you whether you have a pension or what its value is. You also need the name of an employer or a pension provider to kick-start the search process.
You can access the Pension Tracing Service via:
Telephone: 0800 731 0193 (Monday to Friday, 10am-3pm)
Post: The Pension Service, Post Handling Site A, Wolverhampton, WV98 1AF, United Kingdom
Alternatively, some pension providers, such as AJ Bell and Aviva, offer their own in-house pension tracing services. Get in touch with primary pension provider to find out if they have their own, or alternatively, check out the ones below.
AJ Bell pension tracing and consolidation service
AJ Bell’s quick and intuitive service, in partnership with pension-finding specialists Raindrop, is designed to help investors trace lost pensions and then easily combine them into an Aviva SIPP or ready-made pension plan. You can read more about AJ Bell’s pension tracing and consolidation service here.
Aviva ‘Find and Combine’ service
Aviva’s ‘Find and Combine’ service launched in 2024, combining pension tracing, checking and consolidation services into a single product - the first of its kind in the UK.[5]
This is an end-to-end pension tracing service that not only traces lost pensions but also checks them for certain valuable or safeguarded benefits and fees – a feature that is currently unique in the market. Customers are then presented with their own online pension report in an easy-to-understand format, to help them consider their next steps.
You can dive deeper into Aviva’s pension tracing and consolidation offering here.
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[3] now:pensions, October 2024
