A pension expert has warned how thousands of women could be missing out on £130,000 on average when they get divorced.
Kathryn Fleming, pensions expert and partner at Hymans Robertson, has explained how pensions are often ignored when a couple divides their assets after a break-up.
This means women could be missing out on vital cash for retirement - and it could make all the difference in your golden years.
Hymans Robertson suggests more than 15,000 women each year risk losing out on pension cash.
The warning from Ms Fleming is about workplace pensions after a divorce, not the state pension - although some women could be entitled to more state pension after a divorce, too.
All employers must now offer a workplace pension scheme and automatically enrol eligible workers in it.
You’ll be automatically enrolled if you’re aged between 22 and state pension age and you earn at least £10,000 per year.
Ms Fleming told The Sun : “It is really common for people to have pension savings nowadays as for a number of years employers have been auto-enrolling people into a pension scheme, so make sure to insist that pensions are included in the split of money.
"Once you have got pensions included, make sure ALL pension pots are considered."
If you or your partner have switched jobs frequently and you’ve lost track of your pensions, you should sit down together and work out the value of your pots.
The government has a free tracing service that helps people find lost pensions.
Have you managed to find a lost pension? Let us know: mirror.money.saving@mirror.co.uk
Once you’ve worked out the value of your pensions, you’ll then need to decide how you split the asset - and there are different options for how you go about this.
For example you could look at pension sharing, pension offsetting and pension earmarking or attachment.
Pension sharing is a formal agreement to divide your pension assets, while pension offsetting allows one person to retain the total value of their pension in exchange for providing their former partner with alternative assets of the same value.
A pension attachment or earmarking means the pension still belongs to the person who accrued it, but the scheme they’re tied into is required to make some form of payment to the former spouse.
The right option for you will depend on your individual circumstances, so make sure you do your research first and seek advice.
Pension Wise is a government service from MoneyHelper that offers free, impartial guidance.
Ms Fleming said: “Sometimes pensions are offset against the value of the family home, this is often the simplest way to share a pension in divorce, but before agreeing to this option individuals should take advice.
"Pensions change in value, in a very different manner compared to how houses change in value, and they have different tax systems in place for each."
