What’s happened to your previous workplace pensions?

You’ve changed jobs a few times over the years. Moved house once or twice. Maybe even updated your name. Life moves fast – but your old pension pots? They might still be sitting quietly somewhere, forgotten, and not working as hard as they could be. 

According to the Office of National Statistics, three in four people are now currently enrolled in a workplace pension scheme – but billions of pounds in pensions are lost, inactive, or simply unclaimed across the UK, if you’re worried you’ve lost track of a pension over the years, then you’re not alone.

How pensions get lost

This can happen for a variety of reasons, and some of the most common reasons are

• You’ve moved house without updating your details with your pension provider. This means important documents, such as your annual statement, are unlikely to reach you. You may lose track of correspondence altogether, and over time forget you ever even had a pension with that employer.
• You’ve changed jobs a lot over the years. Any new workplace pension won’t necessarily be with the same pension provider as your previous one (or transfer across automatically), meaning it can be easy to forget who your old pension was with in years to come – especially if you were only with an employer for a short amount of time.
• Your pension provider has merged or rebranded. This could make it difficult to know which company you now need to contact.

Profile Pensions can assist with tracking and consolidating pensions both for new and existing customers. If you’re completing a pension review with us as an existing customer, please take a moment to consider and run through the following checklist to see if any of the below is applicable for you

•  When have I changed jobs throughout my career? Do I have a timeline of my career digitally or on paper? (An up-to-date CV would be a good way of keeping track of this).
•  Have I been receiving statements about my previous workplace pensions? (Maybe you might have stored these in a cupboard, folder or file and forgotten about them). Or do I maybe recall having an online login for digital access to view my pension?
• Have I moved to a different employer since I’ve been a customer of Profile Pensions? If so, have I informed them about my job change? Or maybe there’s other pensions that I forgot to inform them about in the first instance?

Whatever the situation, we’re able to help you

If you’ve changed jobs and have your previous providers details available, you can opt for our ‘Transfer Only’ option, which will enable you to move your previous pension or pensions at no extra cost.

If you’ve changed jobs but you’ve misplaced your information about your pension, maybe never received anything through the post, or if you’re struggling to locate anything at your end, then please don’t worry as you can simply opt for our ‘Find, Check & Transfer’ option – we will just need to know the name of the company that you worked for, your dates of employment and whereabouts the company were based.

In addition to the one-off fee for our Find, Check & Transfer service, we charge an ongoing service fee. Please refer to our Terms of Business for full details. We charge a fee of 1% of the pension value for our Find, Check & Transfer service. This is a one-off fee deducted from the pension value. We will do our best to help locate and assess your pensions, and where appropriate, we can help consolidate them.

It’s important to get re-engaged with your pensions, to have the visibility on your investments, and to be able to keep track on how your money is performing.  Profile Pensions are able to assist with this, but it’s important that you keep on top of exactly where your pension pots are, and in order for us to continuously help you and monitor your investments, there are some simple but important steps for you to take as you go along in life and any major changes in your working career. 

Ready to take control of your retirement? 

Give us a call or drop us a message through your online account if you ever change jobs, and then we can ensure not only to be able to help you with moving your previous pension, but to also ensure that we’ve got up to date details on file for you.

If you’re unsure about your working history or haven’t kept an up to date record, you can always check online using the government website. And don’t forget, keeping on top of your workplace pensions and having them together will provide great advantages for you moving forward, including

• Less paperwork to deal with

• A reduction in emails and not needing to have multiple online pension accounts

• Better visibility to see your pensions as one, rather than scattered in different places

• Easier access to your investments when you want to flexibly drawdown in the future

Consolidating pensions can also offer benefits such as easier management and fewer charges, but it may not be the best option in all cases. You could lose valuable benefits by transferring. We recommend reviewing your existing pension terms before deciding to consolidate.

Don’t leave your hard-earned money scattered and forgotten. Start tracking down your lost pensions today and make sure every penny is working towards the future you deserve.

The decision to transfer or consolidate pensions should be based on your individual circumstances. We offer pension investment recommendations based on your financial goals and pension benefits.