PPI - Lost Pensions 2022: What's the scale and impact?

The Pensions Policy Institute has published Briefing Note 134 - Lost Pensions 2022: What’s the scale and impact? sponsored by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and Punter Southall Aspire (PS Aspire).

In 2018, the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) published Briefing Note 134 - Lost Pensions 2022: What’s the scale and impact? This Briefing Note explored the definition of lost pensions, their estimated value and potential impact on retirement outcomes, and the effectiveness of current processes to reunite individuals with their retirement savings. It was supported by data from the PPI Lost Pensions Survey (2018). This year's Briefing Note revisits the lost pensions challenge four years on, supported by fresh data from the PPI Lost Pensions Survey (2022) and shows the scale of the problem of lost pension pots.

Some of the main finding include:

• The total value of ‘lost’ pension pots has increased by £7.2 billion over the last four years, new data published by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) reveals.
• Value of lost pensions has risen from £19.4 billion in 2018 to a staggering £26.6 billion in 2022.
• The number of lost pensions has increased by a whopping 73% during that period, pointing to large numbers of relatively small funds going missing
• Despite this, the estimated average value of lost pension pots still sits at £9,470.
• Pensions Dashboards expected to make it easier for savers to locate old pots, boosting engagement and making it easier to combine pensions. By 31 August 2023the FCA expect regulated pension providers to have completed the digital architecture of their systems and be ready to receive requests to find pensions/search their databases for data matches.

The decline of defined benefit pensions linked to employment and changes in work patterns in the past couple of decades mean that most people no longer have a ‘job for life’ and with job mobility becoming the norm, may have built up a number of pension plans over the years linked to these individual employments.

Whilst we wait for the Pension Dashboard to ‘go live’ there are other facilities available to assist clients in tracing lost pension plans – please contact us if you would like more information

This information is correct as of 15/11/2022