Shred old pension papers..?

ferry

This weekend we've been through loads of old paperwork-some dating back years and amongst it all were old paperwork relating to pension funds we used to have before tansferring them to new providers.

Any benefit to keeping old paperwork 'just in case' or is it safe to just shred them?

Just curious..

F

sleepless_saver

I'd keep them, at the very least the papers that show the details and value of the old pensions on transfer to your current pension. Companies do lose stuff over the years, so it's good to have your own papers in case there is ever a problem.

RichandJ

sleepless_saver wrote: »

I'd keep them, at the very least the papers that show the details and value of the old pensions on transfer to your current pension. Companies do lose stuff over the years, so it's good to have your own papers in case there is ever a problem.

+1 Definitely keep them.

Old_Slaphead

There's that much 'junk' included with annual valuations, that for anything over 2 years, old I keep the salient bits (ie year's transactions & yearend valuations) and scrap the rest (ie reports on how badly your WP plan has done, future projections etc).

Loughton_Monkey

I shred virtually everything. But only after scanning them into software (PaperPort). Most of the time, it is the information the document contains that is of value rather than the original piece of paper itself. Obvious things to keep are Insurance/Pension policy documents, Share certificates etc.

So I have the best of both worlds. I am certainly not cluttered with paper (which I keep originals pending a twice yearly shredding session), but nevertheless I put squirrels to shame!

For example, would you like to see a copy of my 2nd Quarter 1974 Electicity Bill (£24.34)? Or maybe you would prefer a payslip of September 1971 for a week's pay of £31.52 from which they deducted a gruesome amount of NI amounting to 88 pence!

jamesd

Scanning them is what I'd do if I really didn't want to keep them. Photograph and check legibility if no scanner is available. You can put the scans on a CD or DVD and store them cheaply at a bank so they are safe from fire.

sleepless_saver

jamesd wrote: »

Scanning them is what I'd do if I really didn't want to keep them. Photograph and check legibility if no scanner is available. You can put the scans on a CD or DVD and store them cheaply at a bank so they are safe from fire.

I'd like to do this, but am put off by the short lifespan of some burned CDs and DVDs (google for cd lifespan). The bottom line is that there's no guarantee that the info will still be accessible when needed, so I'm not prepared to take the risk.

Loughton_Monkey

sleepless_saver wrote: »

I'd like to do this, but am put off by the short lifespan of some burned CDs and DVDs (google for cd lifespan). The bottom line is that there's no guarantee that the info will still be accessible when needed, so I'm not prepared to take the risk.

I can understand the concern.

Using PaperPort, I can save in the standard Pdf Format. You have to be 'passionate' about backups. I have backups on three seperate computers and on two DVD regimes (one of home premises) and on two external hard drives as well. I would typically have 6 months worth of paper, too, in case my very latest scans were to get lost somehow.

jamesd

Well, you can use more than one backup, disks that have a good reputation, solid state USB drives, web backup services and multiple hard drive copies as well.

At the moment there's presumably just one copy of the paper records, so adding copies stored elsewhere would be increasing the chance of the records surviving even if the paper copies are kept.

sleepless_saver

I do scan and keep an additional backup of papers I think are particularly important, but I expect I could be a bt more systematic about it. I feel a belated New Year resolution coming on.

Apart from the durability of storage media, my problem is that if anything happened to me no one else in my family has the technical ability to find a non-paper file despite my best training attempts!