Tracing old pensions
It's important to track down all the different pension schemes you've paid into, so you can be sure you're claiming everything you're entitled to in retirement.
How can I find out all the pensions schemes I’ve paid into?
It can be tricky to keep on top of all the pension schemes you’ve paid into throughout your working career. Fortunately, The Pension Tracing Service is here to help.
The Pension Tracing Service is free and can help you trace a pension you’ve lost track of, even if you don’t have the contact details of the pension provider.
Before using the service collect as much information as you can, including:
- the name of your previous employer or pension service (you will need this to get started)
- any previous names it had
- the type of business it ran
- whether it changed address
- when you belonged to the scheme
Trace your pensions
Contact the Pension Tracing Service to help you find pensions you've lost track of.
The Pension Tracing Service will only tell you the contact details of the pension’s administrator. You will then need to contact the pension administrator to find out whether you have a pension, what value it is and to ask for it to be paid out.
Other ways to find your pension
You could also use Gretel. This is a new service that launched in April 2022 - it's completely free and can help you find all types of financial assets, including lost pensions.
As it's so new, the financial institution that your pension is with may not be signed up to the service yet, so Gretel might not be able to find it. However, new financial institutions are being added to the service all the time and Gretel will continue to search for your assets every two weeks. So if it doesn’t find your pension straight away, it may find it in the future.
More information you might find useful
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