Tracking Down Pensions

[Venisonpie]

Sorry if this has been done to death before, I've got 4 previous employers with whom I don't know if I had a pension. Is it as straight forward as writing to them all to establish if I did? If so, where should any correspondence be directed? One of them was bought out about 15 years ago.

TIA.

[FriedMarsBar]

There's this
https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

and some general advice for finding pensions.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-ret...

Good luck.

[The Leaper]

Tracing pensions from some time ago is not as straightforward as it sounds. A major issue is many people move and don't advise the pensions administrators etc so all contact from them is lost. You should contact each employer to see if there's anything there...they may have moved, been acquired etc too.

You can also use, as mentioned above, the government's Pension Tracing Service. It is nowhere near 100% reliable because it needs to be maintained by all occupational pension plans, which many fail to do. Make sure you use the link provided above which is free. There are many other websites offering the same service and they charge you a fee for doing so....all they do is use the same identical service and report back, plus send an invoice.

Good luck!

R

[OMITN]

I found the providers quite helpful. Where I had letters from providers for previous employers, calling them would either get a confirmation or they would let me know who the fund had been transferred to.

I had about four old ones (I’ve only ever had DC pensions and I’ve only worked in the 21st century) but it was much simpler than I expected.

Sadly they’re worth naff all and I need to pull my finger out for the next 20 years….

[raceboy]

Just here to give myself a link to the topic as I'm in a similar position, but only 2 'lost' pension pots and neither will be particularly large.
One will be easy to trace as I still have up to date paperwork and it's a large multinational PLC, the other might be a little trickier but it's the less valuable of the 2 anyway....

[VR99]

I was in a similar boat to you OP but fortunately had some paperwork lying about.

My only suggestion if you have absolutely no details on the pensions or who administers them is to call to old employers and ask to speak with HR and/or Payroll?
If you are lucky they will be able to give you contact details for the platform that administers your pensions. As already mentioned, it isnt always a straightforward process...it was painful for one of my old pensions and was passed between different teams before I made progress.
The additional headache is when pension schemes are moved around between admin companies e.g: change of company or bought/sold etc

[Venisonpie]

Thanks all. Discovered a load of paperwork for pensions I didn't know I had and still have 4 to potentially find but not the 4 I initially thought were missing!

It's quite an interesting experience as added up they represent a reasonable sum.