The MoneySavingExpert has helped a woman increase her pension pot by £45,000. On a recent episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show, a woman said a tip helped her put thousands more into her pension.
Using Lewis’ advice, Ruth was able to track down a lost pension from when she was 22, which is now worth £45,000. This success story is part of a broader push by Lewis to highlight the money currently lost in dormant pension pots across the UK. On the show, Lewis said: “You were impressed in the studio when that number came up, £45,000, weren’t you? It was a bit of a ‘woo’ in here. And it’s really worth it, you think that number’s big? Let me give you another number on this. There’s over £30 billion, 30,000 million, of pensions that are thought to be lost, an average of just under £10,000 each.” Lewis explained that people are missing out on an average of £9,500 because they lose track of pensions from different employers over the years.
This can be due to not updating contact details (like your address and surname), changing jobs, or pension providers merging or being renamed.
Martin Lewis recommends gathering old details by locating old employment documents, such as P45s or P60s, to find previous employers or pension providers.
If you no longer have these, you can use the free Government Pension Tracing Service, which has the contact details for over 200,000 pension schemes.
If you have no luck with these or can’t remember any details, try a free tracing service like Gretel.co.uk to locate lost pots. Provided by financial firms, it performs a ‘soft check’ to find lost bank accounts, shares, and pensions. It then checks every 14 days.
Once you have the pension provider’s contact details, get in touch to update your details and avoid missing out on the money.
Other major pension boosters include Voluntary National Insurance Contributions and Home Responsibilities Protection.
Voluntary National Insurance Contributions are for those aged 40 to 73. Checking for and filling gaps in your National Insurance (NI) record can boost a state pension by thousands.
Home Responsibilities Protection is for women who took time off work to care for children between 1978 and 2010. They may have missed out on necessary HRP, resulting in lower state pensions.