Billions sitting in forgotten pension pots

According to an article in Pensions Age, research from technology company Gretel has found that pension pots worth a total of £37bn are lost or dormant across 1.6 million savers in the UK. Gretel has launched an online dashboard to help savers find their lost funds as their research revealed that 44% of all UK adults think they may have a lost or dormant account, yet only 13% have ever tried to track them down.

Gretel Chief Executive Duncan Stevens commented:

“At a time when the cost of living in the UK is at its highest level in 30 years, getting the £50bn of dormant, lost and unclaimed money from savings, investments and pensions back into the hands of the consumer, where it belongs, is more important than ever before. Gretel research shows that consumers have historically faced an array of barriers relating to cost, complexity and miscommunication when it comes to tracking down lost accounts.”

Engagement push by pension providers and schemes

Both the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) have announced a new industry-wide campaign to run this autumn/winter intended “to boost people’s understanding and engagement with their pensions”. This “engagement season” campaign has been driven by research that shows that only 20% of people are confident that they are saving enough for retirement, engagement with pensions remains too low and over half of the public struggle to find their pension information.

The expectation is that the campaign will share tips on how individuals can identify who their pension providers are, make sure contact details are up to date, check how much they have saved towards retirement and prepare for pensions dashboards.

Fifteen providers and schemes (listed on the press release and representing approximately 41.5 million savers) have committed to support the campaign with at least £1m being pledged for it over the next three years.

The PLSA and ABI state that the campaign’s resources will be widely promoted and made freely available across the pensions industry, with the aim of encouraging savers (in automatic enrolment schemes, DB pensions, SIPPs and also those who have started withdrawing money from their pensions) to engage more with existing pensions communications, save more to achieve a higher income in retirement, review their retirement options, consider opportunities to consolidate and see how and where their pension is invested.

Old pension pots from previous workplaces can be tracked down through your previous employers or by using the Government’s Pension Tracing Service at www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details.

For more information about saving for retirement, click here to read our article ‘when can I retire?’ , or take a look at our retirement calculator to get an estimate of how long your non-property wealth is likely to last.

The information in this article is correct as of 21/05/2022.

Please note: Investment returns are not guaranteed, and you may get back less than you originally invested.