I was stunned to find almost £40,000 in lost pension cash – how to check you’re not missing out too

Software engineer Alex Fielder could never have imagined finding almost £40,000 in pension funds he had forgotten about.

The 44-year-old, who lives in Andover, Hampshire, with his wife and two children, began searching for forgotten funds after he was furloughed from his job in 2021.

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Fortunately, Alex was only out of work for a few weeks before he was hired by another company, but two years later he was laid off again.

He worked at the company for less than two years before being fired for the second time.

The sudden shock of being laid off made him feel the need to get his finances in order.

“The combination of the experience of being laid off (twice) and watching a good friend of mine get sick was a stark reminder to me that ‘life happens’ and that you never quite know what’s around the corner,” he said.

“Then I decided I needed to get my ducks in order, just in case.”

He started searching for old pension records, but didn’t make much progress.

One day, while he was working at a coworking space in Andover, he talked to someone who knew all about Penny, the app that tracks your old retirement funds, and decided to give it a try.

After downloading the Penny app in January 2023, Alex realized he had lost four pots from 2002 that he had forgotten about.

“I first started paying into my pension when I was 21,” he said.

“But since then I have changed jobs several times. Having worked in different places for over two decades, it is really difficult to keep up to date with everything.

“When I stopped to think about it, I realized I wasn’t sure exactly how many pensions I had.”

The problem of lack of pensions

Alex’s story is more popular than you can imagine.

Latest figures suggest millions of savers have lost count of old pots worth thousands of pounds.

According to recent findings by the Pensions Policy Institute, there is as much as £26.6 billion in pensions across the UK where the provider no longer has contact with the saver, affecting around 2.8 million people.

It found the average lost pension is around £9,500, with people aged 55 to 75 seeing an average of £16,004 in lost pots.

A separate report from provider PensionBee from earlier this year reached similar conclusions and revealed that one in 10 workers believe they have lost a pot worth £10,000 or more.

Finding Penny, an app designed to help employees consolidate their pensions, proved to be a turning point for Alex.

Using a clever tool, the savvy saver soon discovered he had one pot in The People’s Pension, one in Willis Towers Watson, one in Scottish Widows and one in Standard Life.

Alex said: “They each contained different amounts, going up to a whopping £16,000 in one.”

Discovering this changed his game a bit.

“It gave me a much clearer understanding of how much I need to save between now and the end of my working life to enjoy a decent retirement.”

According to the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, the average annual income required to provide a “comfortable” retirement for a single person is £43,100. For couples this amount is £59,000.

While using the Penny app was easy and hassle-free for Alex, transferring pension pots to Penny from various other providers wasn’t so easy.

Alex said: “The first pot to be transferred was what I had accumulated in The People’s Pension between 2015 and 2021.

“This transfer was completed in July 2023 and was completely seamless.”

“The Standard Life pension experience was also very simple.

“I accumulated this pool while working at the company I left in 2023.” – Alex said. “Once again, it all happened in a matter of weeks.”

The total amount donated from these two pots was approximately £20,000.

However, two of his remaining pools are taking much longer, and he has complained to the companies.

He said: “Luckily Penny is great at chasing down troublesome suppliers. I now hope that the complaint will help speed things up.”

Peace of mind from finding retirement pots

For Alex, one of the most important things about tracking lost funds and combining them into one place is the peace of mind it provides.

He said: “Now that I’m on track to have all my retirement savings in one place, I can relax a lot more because I know where they are and how I can access them.

“I can also pass this information on to next of kin, giving your loved ones one less thing to worry about.”

By connecting the pots, Alex regained control.

While the money Alex found through Penny isn’t huge, it’s certainly a very welcome boost.

“Hopefully finding these missing pots will make financing my later years a little easier,” he said. “It could really help improve my quality of life when I get older.”

This is especially important for a hard-working dad who has no other savings for retirement.

How to track your own pensions

For Penny, you just need to provide details such as your Social Security number and any old job information. This could be the name of your employer, the dates you worked and the name of your pension fund if you remember it.

Alex said: “With Penny it’s really easy to find lost and forgotten pots because the app is really user-friendly. If you have questions, you receive answers very quickly via instant messaging. There is a real person who can help.”

Once you find your forgotten funds, Penny will combine them into one new pool. You can check this using the panel in the application.

Penny charges a fee of 0.75% to manage your pension and there are no additional fees. The only exception is if you decide to put your money into an “ethical fund.” In this case a fee of 0.78% will be charged.

If you are someone who has many different pensions, you may immediately come to the idea of ​​combining them all together as this will mean less paperwork to deal with.

You can even save by pooling with a provider with a lower fee. But you need to check if this is the right move for you.

It is important to check whether there may be exit fees or potential penalties for transferring your pot. You also need to find out whether you risk missing out on valuable benefits, such as guaranteed annuity rates.