Old Pension funds

ging84

Just a quick question about what happens with old pensions funds

I was working for a company for about 3 years where i was part of the private pension scheme, i left that job about 2.5 years ago and have been working for another company paying in to another private pension scheme

I used to get the odd letter from the old pension, but those stopped 2 years ago when i moved house and didn't let them know my new address.
I have some paper work in a box for it somewhere, in a few months time i am moving again to what will hopefully be a permanent home, then i plan to properly sort all my finances out including the pension.
Is there a risk of me completely losing it if i leave it too long?

jamesd

There is no risk of you completely losing it just due to lack of communication. Just update them with your new address when ready.

If for some reason you do lose touch, perhaps if the pension scheme becomes hard to trace somehow, there's also a government-operated Pension Tracing Service that helps people to locate pension pots.

If it is a defined contribution type, one where you can choose which investments to use, you have the option of transferring it into another personal pension to make it easier to keep track or possibly get lower fees or a better range of investment options. Performance of this type depends on how the investments do.

If it's a final salary type there's even the Pension Protection Fund to ensure that you get at least most of the money if the firm the pension is for goes bust. Standard and effectively universal increase with inflation until you reach the scheme's pension age if it's a final salary type.

mgdavid

you won't lose a pension fund just on time; but you may lose it if you don't keep paperwork so when you have a permanent address you can write to them quoting the Scheme name and reference number etc.