Are You Potentially Throwing Away Thousands Of Pounds? Try Locating Your Old Pensions
It is good practice to review your pensions regularly. However, what if you have lost or misplaced your pension details. Worse still, what if you have pensions that you don’t know about? The latter of the scenarios may seem far-fetched, but you would be wrong to discount the possibility of having pensions you don’t know about.
Therefore, keep reading to discover how to track down lost or misplaced pensions, and maximise your pension investments for your retirement.
Tracking Down Your Pensions
If you have pensions that you’ve lost track of, you can still recover the situation. The simplest method of tracking down an old pension is to use the government’s online pension tracking service, which can be found on the gov.uk website.
Although this online service is relatively straightforward to go through, you might find dealing with pensions either complex, mundane, or both! Therefore, you might want to consider using a regulated financial adviser to help you track your pensions down. Alternatively, there are companies specialising in pension-tracking.
Using either of these third-party services is likely to cost you, ensuring you are aware of the costs before entering into any agreement. You’ll need to provide them with just a few details about yourself and your employment to get them started on their search, and they’ll probably use the government service as their starting point.
Your Pension’s Current Value
If you have lost track of a pension, you are probably no longer paying contributions to it. Therefore, it’s unlikely that your pension will be growing, and it could even be decreasing in value due to high fees. So, getting your pensions tracked down as soon as possible is critical.
Once you have gathered your various pension schemes together, you can assess their financial value and their various features. Comparing these with different products available on the market will inform your decision to keep your existing schemes or transfer them to another pension fund. A regulated financial adviser is probably your best option for helping you make these decisions.
Transferring Your Pensions
With most pensions, you have the facility to transfer or switch to another scheme. If you have an older pension scheme, it may be beneficial for you to do this, as more aged pensions tend to perform less well and are generally subject to higher charges. Also, you might want to add new features that your existing pension doesn’t have, or you might want to combine your pensions to reduce administration.
For instance, a popular feature of many pensions is the facility to access funds from age fifty-five – more below. However, some pensions don’t allow you to do this, and you might want it. Whatever decisions you make regarding transferring, switching, combining, or accessing your pension funds, you should first consult with a regulated financial adviser.
Pension Release
We briefly alluded to the concept of pension release previously. This facility allows you to access your pension funds from the age of fifty-five, but it is not available with all pensions. At fifty-five, you can access 25% or less of your total pension fund as a tax-free lump sum. Then, you can access the remainder of your fund as you wish.
You can either take further lump sums of cash, although these will be taxed, or leave the money in your pension to provide a retirement income. Although taking lump sums may seem like a good idea, and it can help you with a significant capital purchase, you should be wary of leaving yourself short of income when you retire. Also, if you take more than 25%, you could be faced with a hefty tax bill. A regulated financial adviser can help you navigate these potentially hazardous financial waters.
Continuing Contributions To Old Pensions
Depending on the terms and conditions of your original scheme, you may be able to restart contributions to the pension fund. However, this may not be the most financially beneficial thing for you to do. Therefore, do your research before making a decision either way. Alternatively, consult a regulated financial adviser and get their professional opinion.
When thinking about your pension, speak to a regulated financial adviser such as Portafina or, view the information at Money Helper.