People who move jobs and migrated have unwittingly amassed billons in forgotten pensions. 

Britain is heading for a ‘lost pensions’ crisis with an increasingly mobile workforce predicated to create a £757bn trail in dormant pensions that could deprive them of thousands of pounds in retirement. 

Employees normally leave any pension entitlement with their former company scheme when they move to a new job.  These small pots are expensive to manage and easy to lose track of. 

Many of these funds will suffer high charges and poor annuity rates, with their owners ignorant that returns could be increased significantly by consolidating their money and taking an active interest.  

Millions more could go entirely unclaimed, so it is important that individuals seize the initiative themselves, not least because one in six people claim to have no idea where their UK pension is saved.

It can be hard to trace your UK pensions with employers once you have left the UK and after decades of corporate restructuring, mergers, and acquisitions. 

It’s easy to lose track of your Australian Super and very easy to trace.  However, many of you may have lost UK Pensions.  Unfortunately, it is not as easy to trace a lost UK pension.  They are not centrally linked with your National Insurance number. 

The UK schemes change administrator quite often and sometimes transfer all liabilities to individual insurance policies.  Unless the scheme has the clients contact details, they are not kept informed of the changes.

Why now is the best time to transfer your UK Pension. The Pensions Regulator admitted that defined benefit pension scheme members may have to accept smaller benefits than in the past.

At least one in six schemes will not be able to pay members their full benefits, due in part to misguided regulation putting too much pressure on these schemes.

Therefore, where would that leave your spouse upon death?  With most defined benefit schemes only paying out 50% death benefits which is fully assessable here.