Missing pots: There are around 2.8m lost pensions in the UK worth around £26.6bn
Savers who think they may have lost track of old pension pots can from today take advantage of a free tracing service from Aviva.
There are around 2.8million lost pensions in the UK worth around £26.6billion – an increase of 73 per cent in the past four years alone.
Savers typically lose track of them when they move house and forget to tell pension providers their new contact details. The typical lost pension is worth around £9,500, according to Aviva.
There are several free tracing services, including an official government one, details of which can be found at gov.uk/ find-pension-contact-details.
Aviva’s new Find and Combine service aims to go further than most by checking the pots that it finds for valuable or safeguarded benefits. Savers who find lost pensions often decide to consolidate them to make them easier to manage.
But in some cases, consolidation will mean sacrificing valuable benefits, for example a loyalty bonus or life assurance.
Some pensions also have fees attached for switching, which may mean that it is not worth going ahead.
Aviva says it includes all of this information in an online pension report. Savers do not need to transfer or combine their pensions with Aviva if they use its tracing service.
Joanne Phillips at Aviva, says: ‘Investing time today to trace your lost pension could be the best investment you make all year.’
