A job for life seems to be a thing of the past. It is rare to find someone who has stayed with the same company for their entire working life. Most people nowadays are not averse to changing employer. Often pensions benefits built up with a former employer may be forgotten or the paperwork lost during subsequent house moves or “clear outs”. To address this issue a new DWP website has been launched by the Pension Tracing Service to help people find their lost pension savings.

Pension Tracing Service

There is currently an estimated £400 million in unclaimed pension savings. This is money people have previously saved for their retirement, and the new website will better help people to locate their hard-earned savings.

Wider pension reforms are creating a dynamic market where people have greater freedom and flexibility over their savings, and we expect our reforms will increase demand for the Pension Tracing Service.

Minister for Pensions, Baroness Ros Altmann said:

“People have had on average 11 jobs during their working life which can mean they have as many work place pensions to keep track of. The new DWP online Pension Tracing Service helps reunite people with their lost pensions, giving details of providers to help people track them down.  I’d encourage anyone who thinks they may be missing out on any savings to use the free online service.”

The new service is simple to use and provides trace results immediately. Individuals enter their former employers’ details into the online database and are provided with contact details for pension schemes they may have paid into.

The Pension Tracing Service is a free service that enables people to search a database of more than 320,000 pension scheme administrators.

If you think you might have a lost pension why not give it a go: https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details.

Alternatively give us a call.