Pensions benefits you may have missed - £20billion in overlooked or unclaimed pensions
In the third of our blogs looking at benefits in a pension you may have missed, Technical Director John Dowding discusses the £20 billion in overlooked or unclaimed pensions.
It is quite common to refer our pension as if it is one single arrangement. Indeed, in yesteryear this was usually the case as it was not unusual for individuals to stay with their employer for most if not all of their working career.
However, many of us now have several jobs throughout our working lives and undoubtedly accumulate several different pension pots along the way. And it is therefore quite easy to forget about some of them altogether, particularly when retirement is still some way off.
Forgetting pensions is much more commonplace that you might think. In fact, it is estimated that a massive £20billion worth of pensions are overlooked or unclaimed in the UK. And most of those remain either uninvested or are invested poorly. This potentially represents a huge shortfall for millions of people when they come to retirement.
Thankfully finding your pension is easy. All you need to do is use the Government’s very useful pension tracing service. All you need to do is simply provide the name of your old company or pension provider and the tracing service will do the rest.
Of course, finding your pension is only the first step. The next step is to consider how is it is performing. If you find that the investments haven’t performed well, there may still be time to turn things around especially if you’re some way off retirement. It is essential as this point to involve your financial adviser so they can undertake a review of the investments.
So make sure to make use of the free tracing service. You never know – your pension could be worth a tidy sum.
The Government’s pension tracing service
The information above is based on our understanding of the legislation applicable to UK Registered Pension Schemes, and HM Revenue & Customs rules. It is provided as a summary only and should not be taken as advice - Morgan Lloyd SIPP Services Ltd and Morgan Lloyd Administration Ltd are not authorised to give financial advice and will not be responsible for any decision or action taken as a result of relying on this information. If you are a retail client you should seek financial advice from a financial adviser who is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and/or seek guidance from the Government’s Pension Wise service.
