Ahead of Pensions Tracing Day, Claire Trott, Divisional Director – Retirement and Holistic Planning at St. James’s Place comments:

“Ideally, we don’t want to be in the situation where we need to trace our pensions in the first place, but as we know, life gets in the way and many of us often lose track of our old workplace pensions as time goes on. Keeping a record of all your finances is the key to this, but we know, only 62% of Brits have all paperwork to trace back to their financial products1. However, many will have at least some details, and these are the starting point to tracking down your retirement savings.

“Most providers will need to know your national insurance number, date of birth and probably the address they hold for you – which may be different to your current address or even the one you were living at when you left the scheme – so it’s important to have as many details to hand as possible. If you have changed your name, providers may have details registered in your previous name, so you will be expected to provide proof of your name change as well”.

Claire Trott’s top tips for tracking your pension pots:

  1. Make a list of all the places you have worked and the dates – A bit like a CV this can help you determine where you were at certain stages of your life, it is also helpful if you can work out your address when you worked there as well.  
  2. Speak to your ex-colleagues – We often keep in touch with friends made at work long after we have left and they can be font of knowledge if they have kept their paperwork, or even still work there. They may have some contact details of the scheme and can point you in the right direction.
  3. Use the online search facility – Use the Gov.uk search facility to find pensions linked to your previous employment, using the details above you can search under company names or the pension scheme name. Even if they have changed their name over the years, provided it was registered with HMRC there should be some administrator details.
  4. Use Companies House website – Should you have no luck with finding the information you could dig deeper using Companies House to establish the details of a company should it have been sold or changed its name. You can search and it should tell you the registered address as a starting point.

 

 

Notes to Editors 

1 - Research conducted for St. James’s Place by Opinium, between 23rd August – 4th September 2023 among 4,000 UK Adults. All results are weighted to nationally representative criteria.