Martin Lewis issues ‘lost £10,000’ pension warning | Personal Finance | Finance
More than £30billion in lost pension pots is going unclaimed, Martin Lewis has warned, as he urged British workers to check they’re not missing out on a huge cash boost. In a special edition of the Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV, the personal finance guru and MoneySavingExpert.com founder said the average pot is just under £10,000.
Mr Lewis was likely referring to Research by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) published in 2024 that suggested that as much as £31.1 billion could be lying in unclaimed, inactive, or lost pension pots. 3.3 million pension pots were considered lost at the time, at an average sum of £9,470.
Many workers have had multiple employers throughout their careers, and each of their employers may have enrolled them in a pension scheme.
Each company typically has its own selected plan, sometimes making it tough to keep track of the funds contributed across employers. As a result, billions of pounds are sitting around just waiting to be claimed.
Mr Lewis said: “Lost pensions are a much, much bigger issue than people think about,” before going on to explain that the most common reason for these forgotten pension accounts is largely down to people losing track of them and simply not changing their contact details.
The first thing to do is check if you have paperwork relating to any pensions you think you might have taken out over the years.
However, even if you don’t, you can use the free Pension Tracing Service on GOV.UK which will give you a good chance of tracking it down.
Martin explained how there are 200,000 pension schemes on the Pension Tracing Service database, but if you still don’t have any luck, you can use Gretel, a free online platform that helps people find lost pensions.
Gretel its own tracing data suggests the amount of lost and forgotten pensions could now be even higher at around £64billion.
That indicates the value of the average unclaimed pot could potentially be even greater.
You can find out more here.
