31 October sees the launch of National Pension Tracing Day, a day founded by one of our group companies, Punter Southall Aspire with the support of Aegon, Legal & General, Standard Life and Scottish Widows. Together they’re calling on the pension industry and trustees to encourage the public to use the extra hour on Sunday to trace lost or forgotten pensions.
What is pension tracing?
Only 1 in 25 owners of a pension plan remember to let their providers know of their new address once they have moved home, which is typically eight times in a lifetime. Another big factor is people changing jobs on average 11 times but forgetting to tell their pension company. This contributes to over £19 billion unclaimed pension pots. For many, finding out where to look for a lost pension can be extremely daunting. The National Pension Tracing Day website has lots of useful resources and reveals many common pension pitfalls to watch out for.
Although it is pension scheme members responsibility to keep providers up to date with their contact details, trustee boards can also help by implementing regular tracing exercises – a great good governance task. This is now easily achieved by third-party administrators having the technical capability and relationships to accomplish this quickly.
Why should members trace their pension?
Their pension is theirs! They’ve earned it and have a right to their pension pot. It can have a significant impact on their life post-retirement. It’s also easier than they might think, they can do it themselves.
This is why it is important to keep in touch with members and remind them to keep their contact details up to date. As trustees, we can publicise this in our member communications and websites so they can trace their pensions.
Personally, I am an advocate for pension tracing all year round and will continue organising regular tracing as well as monthly pensioner existence checks as a matter of good governance. I encourage you to tell your members to use this extra hour on Sunday wisely and also consider regular tracing exercises!
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