With roughly £26.6billion going unclaimed, Britons are being urged to check if they could be entitled to a deceased relative’s lost pension.
According to Nest Pensions, there are as many as 2.8 million lost pensions in the UK at present worth an average value of £9,500, which could provide a sizeable boost to a household’s income if entitled.
Jasmine Birtles, founder and director of Money Magpie, said: “One thing that we do know is that you can look for lost pensions of a deceased relative as well as your own.
“A huge amount of money could be claimed after the loss of a relative – money that they themselves didn’t know they had.”
Duncan Stevens, from Gretel, the free online hub which reunites consumers with lost and dormant accounts, added: “We estimate there is £78billion sitting in dormant accounts, with the biggest pot being in unclaimed pensions.
“Worryingly, a staggering amount of this – potentially as much as £15billion – belongs to people who are no longer with us.”
Due to the sheer number of pension schemes in existence and the need to remember key details about the lost relative, such as their employment history, people often find it far more of a challenge to locate old pensions in these circumstances.
However, Mr Stevens noted: “Helping people look for accounts belonging to lost relatives is, therefore, an important part of our mission to get the billions of pounds of dormant, lost and unclaimed money back into the hands of those to whom it belongs.
“In removing the need for much of this additional information, Gretel hopes to make the process of finding lost pensions, and other savings, far easier and quicker for everyone.”
To use Gretel, people just need to input their address and date of birth (or those of their deceased relative), after which it will conduct a free search.
Ms Birtles said: “When someone dies the people left behind face the arduous task of trying to track down all the pensions, bank accounts and savings someone might have had.”
But, Ms Birtles said using the free services, such as Gretel, can make the task of finding lost assets in a deceased relative’s estate “much more straightforward”.
Another way to track down a lost pension for a third party, according to Ms Birtles, is to do it manually using the Government’s Pension Tracing Service.
People must input any information they have about former employers and former addresses, contacting HMRC and the Pension Protection Fund if necessary.
Ms Birtles said: “Third-party pensions can be a bit trickier to trace than just looking for your own ones, but if you’re willing to wait a bit you could get a surprise windfall after a few months.”
