How do I find my pension?

You may be wondering how it’s possible to ‘just lose’ a pension pot but this is a significant problem. According to The Pensions Policy Institute, in 2024, there were over 3.3 million* pension pots that are considered lost and have not been claimed by their rightful owner. If you think, over the course of your lifetime, it's common to change jobs, careers and potentially end up with multiple pension plans from different employers. Other life events can cause people to lose track of pensions too, for example, moving house and not updating pension providers with the new address. With a staggering £31.1 billion* of unclaimed pension money it’s certainly worth looking into.

First thing’s first - start by collecting as much information as you can. Look through your records for old payslips and correspondence from past employers. This includes any annual statements you may have received from each pension provider. If you don’t have these available, you can contact your providers and request copies. Alternatively you may be able to view them online if you’ve signed up for this service.

Your work history can be a helpful guide for uncovering pensions. Looking through your CV, LinkedIn and tax records can help you uncover pension plans you might have been a part of. Even if you didn't actively contribute to these pensions, you might still have accrued benefits.

You can get in touch with past employers and they should be able to guide you on the pension schemes they provided and the benefits you might be entitled to.
The moneyhelper website has a free guide and template letter you can use to contact previous employers and highlights what information you can ask and should provide.

If you're struggling to find the contact details of an old employer, or you don’t know the provider of a pension you can use the free Pension Tracing Service  from the government. It’s one of the easiest ways to trace lost pensions and locate workplace or personal pension schemes. It searches a database of more than 200,000 workplace and personal pension schemes to try to find the contact details you need. This service isn’t able to tell you whether you have a pension or what its value is though.

Once you have those contact details you can check with past employers or the provider to see if you have any pension benefits that you didn’t know about. For example, you may have been automatically enrolled in a workplace pension and you may have accrued benefits even if you weren't actively contributing. It's always worth checking if you're unsure.

Once you’ve gathered information on all of your pension plans, it's time to find out how much they might be worth. If you don’t have up to date paperwork or an online account, you can contact your pension provider and ask for a current valuation. Working out what you have now and what you might have in retirement allows you to help plan for the future.

Having multiple pension pots could make it tricky to keep track of your money, so it may be beneficial to bring them together into one plan. By combining pensions, it could make them easier to mange. This might not be right for everyone as you may lose valuable guarantees on your existing arrangements if you move your pension pot. We strongly recommend that you speak to a financial adviser to understand what combining pensions would mean for you and whether it's the right option.

To keep track of all your pensions, you could create a spreadsheet or a simple dashboard listing the pension providers and their current values. You can then actively amend the details when you receive new annual statements or, for example, increase your contributions. It’s probably worth including contact details for each provider as well to make life easier in the future.