It can be easy to lose track of your pensions, even if you’re still early on in your career.
Account director Georgina, 29, had no idea she’d already built up a pot worth almost £10,000 when she decided to switch jobs.
She was aware she’d been enrolled in a workplace pension scheme with her old employer, but didn’t know the name of the provider that held her funds.
Georgina, who lives in London, enlisted the help of PensionBee to help track this pot down, and was shocked to discover she had built up £9,510.36 in one pension scheme alone.
Georgina also found another £1,308.23 in a second pension pot which she forgot even existed.
PensionBee says a pension is classed as “lost” if the person doesn’t know the name of their provider or how to access and manage their money.
Have you discovered money sitting in a lost pension? Let us know: mirror.money.saving@mirror.co.uk
Speaking to The Mirror, she said: “I was clueless about pensions because I’m still fairly young and no one tells you about it.
“I left my old job and I knew it was a good pension scheme. The most I could contribute was 6% and then my employer would contribute 9%, so it was really decent.
“I definitely didn’t know there was that much in there though.
“I also knew I had a pension with another previous job as well, so I didn’t want them to vanish into thin air.
“People in my industry move around quite a lot so it’s really easy to lose track.”
Tracking down forgotten pensions is free and easy to do and there are several ways to go about this.
Contacting your old employer is one way to find the name of an old provider.
You’d then need to get in touch with that pension scheme to find out how much money you have put away.
The government also has a free Pension Tracing Service, which is a database of pension provider contact details that you can search by employer name.
Again, you’d need to contact the pension provider yourself once you find out their name.
Georgina decided to move her pensions into one pot to avoid confusion and have the peace of mind knowing that her money is in one place.
Other perks of combining all your pensions include paying less in overall charges if you put your money into a pension with competitive fees.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) predicts the average worker will have 11 different jobs during their career.
Your employer must automatically enrol you into a workplace pension scheme if you're eligible for automatic enrolment.
If your boss does not have to enrol you by law, you can still join their pension scheme if you want to.
PensionBee CEO Romi Savova said: “Tracking down numerous pensions and combining them into a single plan not only helps to reduce the stacks of paperwork associated with scattered savings, but can also provide a clearer picture of how investments are performing.
“By seeing the overall value of all their pensions combined, savers are better placed to assess if they’re on track for the lifestyle they want in retirement, or if they will need to increase their contributions.”
Should I move all my money into one place?
Whether moving all your pensions is right for you depends on your individual circumstances, so you should seek advice first before doing this.
For example, some schemes perform better than others so you don’t want to risk losing out on perks by moving your money to an underperforming pension.
This is particularly important if you have a final salary pension, also known as a defined benefit pension scheme.
These offer guaranteed income based on how much you earn when you retire, so most of the time experts will say you should stay put in these schemes.
You should also be aware of any exit fees that may come with your existing policies, and any fees that are involved in the company that you want to manage your pension moving forward.
