He explained some online tools that can help with managing your pensions
Martin Lewis has told pension savers there are some key tasks they need to do. He explained some basic concepts about pensions and saving for your retirement on his BBC podcast.
This especially applies if you have changed jobs over your career. Mr Lewis explained how easy it is to lose a paper trail when moving from employer to employer. He was asked if you could end up with several retirement pots if you’ve switched roles a fair few times over your working life.
Mr Lewis said in response: “If you’ve had lots of different jobs, you will have lots of different pensions. You absolutely do need to keep track of it.”
‘It can be real money’
For those who have lost their old pension paperwork, the cash isn’t gone forever. Mr Lewis shared some stories of people who managed to track down fortunes they had completely forgotten about.
He told listeners: “I often get messages from people who say, ‘I can’t believe it. I had a pension when I was 21. I worked there for a couple of years. I’d forgotten about it. I’m in my 50s or 60s now. I heard you talk about Gretel or the Pension Tracing Service, and they’ve just told me there’s £120,000.’ It can be real money.”
If you want to track down some lost pensions, a good place to start is the standard Government portal, the Pension Tracing Service. This can help you find the contact details of the pension provider.
Mr Lewis said: “You can use the Government Pension Tracing Service if you know the company you worked for. And while it doesn’t cover as many different pension schemes, you can use the free fintech firm, Gretel, which can also track old pensions for you if you haven’t kept track of them.”
Should I consolidate my pension savings?
Once you actually find all your scattered pensions, you may be minded to put them all into one single pot to make life easier. On this question, Mr Lewis said: “You can consolidate. Consolidating is often a good idea, but there are pros and cons, and I would always suggest if you don’t know what you’re doing with pensions, you get in touch with Pension Wise, which is a sort of a semi-governmental agency to give you free guidance on pensions.
“You can just call them up or go online. You can ask them your questions because consolidating is good for many, but there are some holes in it for some people, and you need to talk to them one-on-one to work out whether it’s best for you.”
