I was stunned after finding almost £40,000 in lost pension cash – how to check if you’re missing out too --[Reported by Umva mag]

SOFTWARE engineer Alex Fielder could never have imagined unearthing almost £40,000 in pension pots that he’d lost track of.

The 44-year-old, who lives in Andover, Hampshire, with his wife and two children, set about finding any forgotten funds after being made redundant back in 2021, after being furloughed.

Fortunately, Alex was only out of work for a couple of weeks before being hired by another firm – but two years later, he was made redundant again.

He was then with this firm for just shy of two years before being made redundant a second time.

The sudden shock of being made redundant left him feeling the need to get his finances in order.

“A combination of having experienced redundancy [twice] and watching a good friend of mine get sick was a stark reminder to me that ‘life happens,’ and that you never quite know what’s around the corner,” he said.

“That’s when I decided I needed to get my ducks in a row, just in case.”

He started hunting around for old paperwork relating to old pensions but didn’t make much progress.

One day, when he was working out of a co-working space in Andover, he got chatting to someone who knew all about Penny, an app which traces your old pension pots, and decided to give it a go.

After downloading the Penny app in January 2023, Alex realised he had four pots that he’d lost track of, dating back to 2002.

“I first started paying into a pension aged 21,” he said.

“But I’ve moved jobs several times since then. Having worked in different places over more than two decades, it’s really hard to keep on top of everything.

“When I stopped to think about it, I realised I wasn’t sure exactly how many pensions I had.”

The missing pensions problem

Alex’s story is more common that you might imagine.

Recent figures suggest millions of savers are thought to have lost track of old pots worth thousands of pounds.

According to recent findings from the Pensions Policy Institute, a whopping £26.6 billion is sitting in pensions across the UK where the provider is no longer in contact with the saver, affecting around 2.8 million people. 

The average lost pension, it found, amounts to approximately £9,500, with those aged 55 to 75 seeing an average of £16,004 in misplaced pots.

A separate report by provider PensionBee earlier this year came out with similar findings, revealing that one in 10 workers believe they’ve lost a pot worth £10,000 or more.

Finding Penny, an app which aims to help workers consolidate their pensions, proved to be a bit of a turning point for Alex.

With the help of the nifty tool, the savvy saver soon found out he had one pot with The People’s Pension, one with Willis Towers Watson, one with Scottish Widows, and one with Standard Life.

Alex said: “There were different amounts in each, ranging up to a huge £16,000 in one.”

Discovering this has been a bit of a game-changer for him.

“It’s given me a much clearer idea of how much I need to save between now and the end of my working life to enjoy a decent retirement.”

According to figures from the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, the average level of annual income required for a single person to live a ‘comfortable’ retirement is £43,100. For couples, this figure stands at £59,000.

While using the Penny app has been easy and hassle-free for Alex, getting the pension pots transferred across to Penny from the various other providers in question has not been quite so plain sailing.

Alex said: “The first pot which got moved was the one I’d accrued with The People’s Pension between 2015 and 2021.

“This transfer completed in July 2023 and was totally seamless.”

“The experience with the Standard Life pension was also very straightforward.

“I’d accrued this pot while working for a company which I left in 2023,” said Alex. “Once again, it all happened within weeks.”

The total transferred from these two pots amounted to around £20,000.

However, two of his other pots are taking much longer and he’s made a complaint with the firms.

He said: “Thankfully, Penny has been great at chasing the troublesome providers. I’m now hoping the complaint will help to speed things along.”

Peace of mind from finding the pension pots

For Alex, one of the biggest things to come out of tracking down lost funds – and combining them into one place – is the peace of mind it provides.

He said: “Now that I’m well on the way to having all my pension savings in one place, I can relax a lot more as I know where they are – and how I can access them.

“I can also pass this information on to my next of kin, meaning there’s one less thing for loved ones to worry about.”

Bringing pots together has put Alex back in control.

While the money Alex has found via Penny is not huge, it’s certainly a very welcome boost.

“Finding these missing pots will hopefully make financing my later years a little easier,” he said. “It could really help improve my quality of life when I’m older.”

This is especially important for the hard-working dad, as he doesn’t have any other savings earmarked for retirement.

How to track down your own pensions

With Penny, all you need to do is provide details such as your National Insurance number and any information you have about old jobs. This could be the name of your employer, the dates you worked there, and the name of your pension provider, if you can remember it.

Alex said: “Tracking down lost and forgotten pots really is so easy to do with Penny as the app is really user-friendly.I f you have queries, you get responses very quickly via instant messaging. There’s a real person who can help.”

Once you’ve located forgotten funds, Penny then combines them into one new pot. You can view this via a dashboard on the app.

Penny charges 0.75% for managing your pension and there is no additional fee. The only exception is if you opt to put your money in an ‘ethical fund.’ In this case, you will get charged 0.78%.

If you are someone who has lots of different pensions, you may jump at the idea of bringing them all together as this will mean you have less paperwork to deal with.

You might even be able to save by combining pots into a provider with a lower fee. But you do need to check this is the right move for you.

It’s important to see if there are exit fees or potential penalties that may be incurred for transferring your pots. You must also find out whether you risk missing out on valuable benefits by doing so, such as guaranteed annuity rates.

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