Nearly 23 per cent of people say they have lost track of a pension, according to Hargreaves Lansdown.
One in five individuals weren’t sure if they had lost track of someone or not. Approximately 60 per cent of people had several pensions.
In addition, nearly 43 per cent of those in the 18-to-34 age bracket reported having forgotten about a pension, compared to only 6 per cent of those over 55. A little under one-third of respondents said they’d like to combine their pensions.
The data comes from a 2,000-person study conducted by Opinium for HL in September 2022. National Pension Tracing Day, which falls on October 30, encourages the search for lost pensions.
Hargreaves Lansdown senior pensions and retirement analyst Helen Morrissey says: “Most people will change jobs several times during their working lives and this means we are likely to accumulate several pensions. Over time, it can be easy to lose track – you may move jobs or house and don’t update your contact details. But this can have a major impact on your retirement planning.
“Finding a lost pension could be the difference between struggling to make ends meet or being a bit more comfortable in retirement. It might mean you can afford go part-time in the years before retirement or need to stay in work for longer, so its vitally important to keep your contact details for your pensions up to date. If you think you have lost track of a pension, contacting the government’s pension tracing service can help you locate it.
“Once you’ve located your lost pension, it might make sense to consolidate it with any other pensions you may have. This makes it easier to keep track from an administrative perspective and you have a clearer view of what your savings are -this could affect your retirement decision making. Almost one-third of people we surveyed said they would like to do this.
“However, before doing this, it is important to check whether there are any terms on old pensions that mean you might lose out on valuable benefits or cost you money if you decide to consolidate. For instance, older policies might incur expensive exit fees if you try and move them, or they may have attractive terms like guaranteed annuity rates. Checking for these things in advance can save you a lot of hassle and give you a clearer idea of what you have accumulated so far.”
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