How to locate old pension with private firm from the 80's?
Discussion
Hi My wife used to work in advertising / printing. She paid into pensions at the time, but now can't remember the details. Is there a way of tracing who you might have paid into if you have no current details? She can't remember anything about who the company might have been.
cheers
edit sorry just found this so don't worry
http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/finding-...
cheers
edit sorry just found this so don't worry
http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/finding-...
Coolhands,
A good question and an easy one to answer.
I am a TPAS Adviser. We are not employed. We all give our services for free with as much time as we can. All the advice, services etc from TPAS are free.
TPAS has many enquiries such as your wife's. The DWP has set up a service for this, it's called the Pension Tracing Service. You can access it online (Google Pension Tracing Service UK), access the form, put in the details that they ask, and in due course you should get the details of the point of contact for the relevant pension plan. It's rare that the PTS does not have a contact but it happens some times.
Alternatively, you can write or e-mail TPAS with details of your problem and they may decide to set up a case and then allocate it to one of the 400 or so Advisers, such as me. The Adviser then use their little grey cells to try and get to the plan's current responsible organisation.
Having said all that, I should alert you to the fact that your simple question often takes ages to resolve. The PTS records are sometimes not kept up to date by the relevant pension plan; the pension plan may have been wound up or merged with another; quite often the assets are transferred to an insurance company and that company may be later merged with another, during the course of which the original plan name etc are lost. Actually achieving an organisation agreeing to responsibility is quite an event!
I have probably done about 8 or so searches for a pension that's been lost and never failed to get a positive result, but sometimes it's taken maybe a year to achieve it.
Good luck.
R.
A good question and an easy one to answer.
I am a TPAS Adviser. We are not employed. We all give our services for free with as much time as we can. All the advice, services etc from TPAS are free.
TPAS has many enquiries such as your wife's. The DWP has set up a service for this, it's called the Pension Tracing Service. You can access it online (Google Pension Tracing Service UK), access the form, put in the details that they ask, and in due course you should get the details of the point of contact for the relevant pension plan. It's rare that the PTS does not have a contact but it happens some times.
Alternatively, you can write or e-mail TPAS with details of your problem and they may decide to set up a case and then allocate it to one of the 400 or so Advisers, such as me. The Adviser then use their little grey cells to try and get to the plan's current responsible organisation.
Having said all that, I should alert you to the fact that your simple question often takes ages to resolve. The PTS records are sometimes not kept up to date by the relevant pension plan; the pension plan may have been wound up or merged with another; quite often the assets are transferred to an insurance company and that company may be later merged with another, during the course of which the original plan name etc are lost. Actually achieving an organisation agreeing to responsibility is quite an event!
I have probably done about 8 or so searches for a pension that's been lost and never failed to get a positive result, but sometimes it's taken maybe a year to achieve it.
Good luck.
R.
Coolhands,
Ginge R is right in the simplest of situations, and your wife may be lucky, but the cases that come to TPAS are never that simple. Usual characteristics when someone comes to TPAS for help are that the pension was set up as a deferred pension when the employee left their employer years ago, the employee has failed to tell the pension plan of any address changes, and then if you allow for corporate acquisitions, plan sponsor changes, winding up maybe, insurance company changes and the like, and you can begin to see the mire that pension tracing can become.
Often the amount can be quite small, insignificant almost, and the time taken to find it is out of all proportion to its value. I've had cases where the pension is maybe in the range £15-£25 PER ANNUM, and it takes around 30-50 hours of work to trace responsibility for it. It's good for the enquirer that they ask TPAS to do this because the services are free, but there are shysters out there on the web that offer a tracing service for a fee.
R.
Ginge R is right in the simplest of situations, and your wife may be lucky, but the cases that come to TPAS are never that simple. Usual characteristics when someone comes to TPAS for help are that the pension was set up as a deferred pension when the employee left their employer years ago, the employee has failed to tell the pension plan of any address changes, and then if you allow for corporate acquisitions, plan sponsor changes, winding up maybe, insurance company changes and the like, and you can begin to see the mire that pension tracing can become.
Often the amount can be quite small, insignificant almost, and the time taken to find it is out of all proportion to its value. I've had cases where the pension is maybe in the range £15-£25 PER ANNUM, and it takes around 30-50 hours of work to trace responsibility for it. It's good for the enquirer that they ask TPAS to do this because the services are free, but there are shysters out there on the web that offer a tracing service for a fee.
R.
Nothing is ever free, of course.
TPAS in funded by a grant from the DWP which in turn is created out of a levy paid indirectly to the DWP by all UK pension plans.
TPAS's services are free to the user of those services.
The upcoming Guidance Services are going to be a PITA....unfortunately, a future source of many complaints, I think. TPAS is currently working on how it is going to provide the Guidance, probably by phone contact when requested. The staffing of this new required service could be a challenge, not only to TPAS, but to the pensions support business as a whole.
R.
TPAS in funded by a grant from the DWP which in turn is created out of a levy paid indirectly to the DWP by all UK pension plans.
TPAS's services are free to the user of those services.
The upcoming Guidance Services are going to be a PITA....unfortunately, a future source of many complaints, I think. TPAS is currently working on how it is going to provide the Guidance, probably by phone contact when requested. The staffing of this new required service could be a challenge, not only to TPAS, but to the pensions support business as a whole.
R.
The guidance service will be funded, mainly, by advisory firms. That will strike an exultant chord with anyone who has been ripped off by a dodgy adviser I'm sure. It is madness though, that in a period of sustained change, when levels of professionalism, training and conduct have vastly improved and greatly increased with advisers, the vital task of advising people about the final 30 years or so of their lives is going to be done (with the greatest of respect to the work you do - and me in the past as well) in an unregulated manner, in the course of a 30 minute phone call, by well meaning and insightful, enthusiastic but unauthorised volunteers.
I have spent three days this week, just bringing myself up to speed on the latest changes to pension legislation - in itself, keeping abreast of detail like that is almost a full time job. Not only is this guidance service a complete and utter administration disaster waiting to happen, but it is going to misinform and confuse people and serve them poorly and this will only add more misery to the financial services sector. I don't mean any disrespect to TPAS, I have conducted many a community presentation on its behalf. But this evolution is a step backwards, completely insane.. all because of the greedy wishes of a few careerist empire building chief executives who subordinate the public need to their own professional ones.
I spoke with someone this morning, an aged client, who is worried that her family is going to pressurise her to leave her pension untouched, so that it might pass in a tax advantageous manner. I have an evolved relationship with a very vulnerable woman and I know that she appreciates the quality of a service that allows her to pick up the phone and chat with someone (me!) who knows intimately about her position. But with these measures, we are going to have a generation of poor savers and poorly informed pensioners. I make no defence for many of the selfish tossers who have infested my chosen profession over the course of the past 20 years.
I despise them more than many of the justifiably cynical, bitter and twisted here who line up to have a pop at them as well.
Rant off, switches safe, clear dry.
I have spent three days this week, just bringing myself up to speed on the latest changes to pension legislation - in itself, keeping abreast of detail like that is almost a full time job. Not only is this guidance service a complete and utter administration disaster waiting to happen, but it is going to misinform and confuse people and serve them poorly and this will only add more misery to the financial services sector. I don't mean any disrespect to TPAS, I have conducted many a community presentation on its behalf. But this evolution is a step backwards, completely insane.. all because of the greedy wishes of a few careerist empire building chief executives who subordinate the public need to their own professional ones.
I spoke with someone this morning, an aged client, who is worried that her family is going to pressurise her to leave her pension untouched, so that it might pass in a tax advantageous manner. I have an evolved relationship with a very vulnerable woman and I know that she appreciates the quality of a service that allows her to pick up the phone and chat with someone (me!) who knows intimately about her position. But with these measures, we are going to have a generation of poor savers and poorly informed pensioners. I make no defence for many of the selfish tossers who have infested my chosen profession over the course of the past 20 years.
I despise them more than many of the justifiably cynical, bitter and twisted here who line up to have a pop at them as well.
Rant off, switches safe, clear dry.
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