Press release

Thousands more make contact with long lost funds

More and more people have been making contact with their lost pension funds using the government’s free Pension Tracing Service.

From:
Department for Work and Pensions and The Rt Hon Steve Webb
Published
8 May 2014
This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Latest figures show that in the past year alone almost 145,000 people have used the service to locate those long forgotten pensions. This is more than double the number who used the service in 2010, with numbers rising year on year.

By 2018 all employers will have to provide a workplace pension and with the average person having 11 jobs in their lifetime this could lead to 50 million dormant and lost pension pots by 2050.

The government announced last year that it was introducing a system whereby if you move job your pension pot moves too. The ‘pot follows member’ system will mean that any pots of less than £10,000 will automatically move with them.

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said:

With the new flexibilities announced at the Budget it is now even more important that people can access all of their pension saving. People who have already lost touch with a pension can use our free tracing service to track down their fund and many more are.

Soon it will be the norm that when you move job your small pension pot moves with you. This will reduce the costs of providing pensions and help people to plan for their future.

The Pension Tracing Service helps individuals to find occupational and personal pensions that they have lost track of. It uses a database containing information on more than 200,000 pension schemes. The free service provides contact details of the potential scheme administrator to enable customers to make subsequent enquiries.

To find out if the Pension Tracing Service could help you:

Pension Tracing Service contacts and traces

In the financial year 2013 to 2014, 144,169 contacts were made online or by phone with 126,904 successful traces.

In the financial year 2012 to 2013, 107,335 people made contact, with 94,354 successful traces.

In the financial year 2011 to 2012, 77,757 people made contact, with 67,068 successful traces.

In the financial year 2010 to 2011, 76,453 people made contact, with 66,586 successful traces.

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Published 8 May 2014