Don’t Misplace Your Pension – Here’s How to Keep Things Together

The subject of missing pensions is not a new one, but it’s something that we definitely need to bring up. According to Age UK, the top charity for aged UK residents, nearly 5 million people have some sort of money missing from their pensions. This is a big problem when you look at the state of the economy. There’s a lot of money missing, and not always a lot of time to really get things done. You’re much better off tracing those old pensions. It could mean a sharp difference in terms of your quality of life over time.

You might wonder how anyone could misplace something as important as a pension. The truth is that pensions actually come and go as people take on different jobs. Instead of having one big pension account, many people end up having a lot of smaller accounts. This can be a good thing, but it can also be problematic. It’s up to every individual to make sure that they secure all of their pensions.

The truth is that you have a lot of power to make sure that you’re getting the right pension setup going. Look at all of the schemes that you’ve had over the years. If you have moved but haven’t updated your address, you really need to do that. Everything is tracked by your national insurance number, so these pensions aren’t really “lost”.

You just need to make sure that you’re using the right resources to track this stuff down. You want to make sure that you’re going with the online pensions tracing service. It lets you access it by phone as well, just in case you’re not near a computer. You will have to come up with your NI number as well as the employer that you worked for that would be connected to that pension.

You can move your pension around, but you need to make sure that you get a real quote for the transfer of all of those pension accounts. You could have some serious penalties to deal with on the fund itself, so weigh that against the convenience that you’ll get from having all of your monies in one basket. You may miss out on benefits that were linked to that specific “pension pot”. It’s always best to ask a regulated pensions adviser. They will give you the best advice on the matter and connect it back to the specific details that you give them.

Moving your pension is a serious matter, and it’s definitely out of the scope of this guide. You want to make sure that you’re getting into a pension that’s going to be administered well. All of the performance in the world cannot beat out a pension fund that just isn’t managed properly. You’re better off focusing on that than anything else. Good luck!