£26.6bn sitting in 3m lost pension pots - how to check if any of the money is yours
31.10.2022 - 15:09
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
New figures from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) suggest that an estimated £26.6 billion is sitting in unclaimed, dormant, or lost pension plans by some 2.8 million people across the UK. However, as part of Pension Awareness Week, Hargreaves Lansdown has shared how people can track down pension pots to boost their retirement income.
Pension Awareness Week runs from October 31 to November 4 and is delivered by Pension Geeks, MoneyHelper and the pensions industry in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The aim of the dedicated week is to help people make sense of their pension savings and other money matters.
The new PPI data shows that since 2018, the value of lost pension pots in the UK has risen from £19.4bn by 37.7 per cent to £26.6bn - the equivalent of around £7bn. Worryingly, the total value of lost pots is now equivalent to a quarter of the annual cost of the State Pension.
Every employer must now provide all workers over 22-years-old and earning more than £6,240 a year with a pension plan that both they and their employees pay into. This has resulted in more than 10 million people having been ‘auto-enrolled’ since 2012.
However, many employees don’t pay much attention to their workplace pension, or what it’s worth and when they move house or change jobs they may forget about it. In addition to this, it’s estimated that the average person in the UK will change jobs every five years, which means lots of pension pots to keep track of.
Commenting on the latest figures, Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The number of lost pensions is growing at an alarming rate and risks undermining our retirement planning. We are more likely to change jobs