At least 4.8 million pension pots were considered to be ‘lost’ among the UK population in 2023, new research finds.
Additionally, nearly one in 10 workers believe they could have lost a pension pot worth more than £10,000, according to the analysis conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, on behalf of PensionBee.
As the total number of UK pension pots is expected to rise 130 percent, from 106 million (at present) to 243 million by 2050, the number of lost pensions could skyrocket, the pensions experts warn.
However, there are simple tools people can use to check if they could be missing one of their savings pots – and one only takes eight minutes.
Robert Cochran, pension expert at Scottish Widows, said: “The problem of lost pension pots is growing year-on-year and needs to be addressed.
“Research from the Pensions Policy Institute has predicted that the number of small pots is predicted to reach 27 million by 2035.”
People can often lose track of their pensions when they change employers, forget to update their contact details when moving home or misplace paperwork.
However, Mr Cochran noted: “There is help available – for example, providers are increasingly making it easier for people to transfer their old pensions into modern schemes via a smartphone app.
“Offering easy access to pensions via an app that is already linked to online banking services is an extremely effective way of boosting people’s long-term pension engagement and allows customers to move away from complex paper-based pension transfer journeys.”
The Government also offers The Pension Tracing Service, an online tool that’s easy and simple to use.
Mr Cochran explained: “It only requires a few basic details such as the name of the employer the pension is held with and the individual’s national insurance number.
“Once those lost pension pots are tracked down, savers should also consider consolidating their pensions so they are easier to track.
“Consolidating will mean you have a much simpler view of much you are saving for retirement and how best to reach your goals.”
At Scottish Widows, Mr Cochran said: “We have seen customers consolidate over £4billion of old pensions into their pension plan and this process typically takes only eight minutes to complete using the app, so it’s not the complex process that people might think it is.”
