More treasure hunters’ stories
Here are more inspiring real-life stories of people going on their own pension safari. Names and some details have been changed to protect their identity.
Tracking down six lost pensions helped me move house
After reading about the billions tied up in forgotten pensions, Ceri Hatton cast his mind back to the jobs he’d had since starting work at 17.
Now 61, he listed his previous jobs and was eventually reunited with six pensions he had overlooked after using the government’s pension tracing service.
He was able to cash them in and put £8,000 towards moving house.
Ceri, who lives in Bridgwater in Somerset, said: “I’d read about unclaimed pensions and ended up finding four pensions and two found me! I cashed them in for around £8,000.
“It was a welcome surprise and has enabled me to move house. It’s also made me realise just how important it is to keep track of my other pensions and how they are performing.
“I found the whole experience very easy. Pension companies want you to have your money. Everyone involved was very helpful. I’d recommend anyone, especially those nearing retirement age who have been working all their lives, to check.
“It’s so easy to forget and for your money to disappear. I plan to retire in a few years and this little bit extra has given my finances a boost.”
Escape from a job you hate
Neil was in the pub with a friend of his who was saying how much he hated his job. Since the friend was well over 55, the earliest age for taking retirement benefits, Neil asked him why he didn’t just retire. The friend grumbled that he couldn’t afford it yet.
Neil asked if he knew where all his pensions were, and told him about National Pension Tracing Day.
Sure enough, when Neil’s friend tried pension tracing, he found a missing pension pot. He’s very grateful to Neil for the random conversation in the pub!
Source: Punter Southall Aspire
A lost pot can change your life
TV presenter Dennice Robinson, 68, from Cambridgeshire, worked for a number of employers over the years, from radio stations to magazines, collecting multiple pension pots along the way. Dennice went through the steps to trace lost pensions and found a missing pension pot worth £40,000. She took a quarter of her forgotten pot as tax-free cash, helping her to clear her credit cards, become mortgage-free and do some much-needed work on her home.
Dennice has now cut down her working week to two days and been able to spend more time caring for her 42-year-old daughter, who has a learning disability.
Source: The Sunday Times
No treasure, but attention to pension
Fiona had good records for most of her workplace pensions, except her first job. She’d started off working for a travel firm that had since gone through several mergers. Using the Government Pension Tracing Service she got contact details for a pension scheme connected to her old employer. She wrote a letter to the pension scheme, including her date of birth and National Insurance number.
A couple of weeks later she had an email from one of the big pension administrators, explaining they now managed the pensions for this firm. They’d had a good look but hadn’t found any pension records for her. At least she knows.
‘Doing the pension tracing has made me pay more attention to my pensions,’ Fiona says. ‘I’ve now collected them all together and found I had more than I realised!’
Source: Punter Southall Aspire
Positive response for minimal effort
Kara Duncombe, pension specialist for law firm Trowers & Hamlins, heard about #NationalPensionTracingDay from her contact at Punter Southall Aspire. She was astonished at the amount of unclaimed pension money.
She found the communications toolkit easy to use, loading it on to the company intranet as well as getting posters put up in the kitchen/coffee areas of their offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Exeter.
‘All the materials were already drawn up and ready to go’, Kara says. ‘It was a minimal effort to help point people in a direction which could be really beneficial for them.’
Kara was encouraged by the positive response. Some of her colleagues were surprised at what they’d forgotten. Many of them thought hard about where they’d worked before, and whether they’d ticked off everything when they moved.
‘As a business, if you could take these simple steps, why wouldn’t you?’ Kara adds. ‘Not only might it help your people, but they’re also likely to mention it to friends and family. I’d urge every organisation to get behind it.’
Source: Trowers & Hamlins
Three pensions worth £55,000
After hearing about National Pension Tracing Day, Kuldeep went through the pension tracing steps and found three pensions worth a total of £55,000.
‘It was quite simple,’ he says. ‘The hardest part was remembering things from when I started work in the late 70’s.’
Source: Aspire to Retire
My pension found me
Alannah got a nice surprise when she got a letter saying she had a small pension worth £3,000. The pension provider had run a tracing exercise and found her address.
‘I was unaware of its existence,’ she says. ‘And I can’t be the only one. This proves there are lots of lost pensions out there.’
Source: Punter Southall Aspire
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