Pension details for someone with dementia

Selfemployeduntilim100

I am trying to track down details of pensions belonging to my mum who has been diagnosed with dementia. I have an LPA in place to allow me to take care of financial decisions but she cannot help me track them down as I need previous work information. She cannot tell me this, let alone the pension companies.

How can I find this information? The pensions helpline say I need to ring around many companies which she possibly worked for which is not feasible. She has no other relatives to help and we need the information for other reasons including a solicitors.

Brie

If you have some of her employment details you could start with this website:
Find pension contact details - GOV.UK

Aviva runs a similar service but again you'll need to have some employers' names and possibly dates for that to work.  

If you get a bit more information perhaps people hear can provide some insight.  Some employers might have moved the administration of their pensions to a number of different other companies so it can be a bit of work.  But since there are some people here who have worked in various pension firms they might get you where you need to be a bit faster.

also - can you change the title of your post?  I don't think you meant to say Mortgage.

LHW99

Could this help?

https://www.gretel.co.uk/find-lost-pensions

It asks you to:

1. Enter your name, current address and birth date into Gretel.
2. Gretel asks you to verify that we have correctly identified you, then lists all known previous addresses for you to confirm.
3. Gretel lists the accounts we have found, accompanied by detailed instructions and contact details for you to retrieve them.

You would need to use your mum's details.

(Gretel is cited here from time to time, and is not a scam. However I haven't used it so can't say how well it works)

DRS1

Presumably if she worked during your lifetime you would know where she worked?

For time before you were born have you tried asking her friends and family?

If you or they come up with some names (and dates) you can plug them into the search engine mentioned by @Brie. 

Otherwise have you looked through her personal papers?  My mother used to keep anything important in a metal lock box (so it would survive if the house burnt down) and that included some stuff about her pension.  But you may also find old payslips or even a CV (which may list her old jobs).

Selfemployeduntilim100

Thankyou. I Absoloutly meant to put Pension but wrote mortgage 🫣 unsure how to edit so have emailed 👍 

Marcon

Selfemployeduntilim100 said:

I am trying to track down details of pensions belonging to my mum who has been diagnosed with dementia. I have an LPA in place to allow me to take care of financial decisions but she cannot help me track them down as I need previous work information. She cannot tell me this, let alone the pension companies.

How can I find this information? The pensions helpline say I need to ring around many companies which she possibly worked for which is not feasible. She has no other relatives to help and we need the information for other reasons including a solicitors.

How old is your mother - that could be very important. Is she in receipt of a state pension?

Do you have any recollections of whether, where and when she worked - stay at home housewife? Part time or full time job (that could be important)? 

One thing which might help you is this thread, in particular my post of 15 May 2021: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6267734/is-there-a-really-detailed-online-method-to-check-nics/p1 I'm afraid it's a long thread and there's no real alternative to reading the whole thing to understand why it might be useful. 

MallyGirl

I have seen people do a SAR request for the government held history to get clues on employers

Brie

I agree with Marcon about thinking about how old she is.  I know that work pensions were few and far between before the 1970s and right up until the late 80s/early 90s it was very easy to lose or be denied any benefit for various reasons - particularly if one was a woman.  Joining age might have been as high as 25, continuous full time service might need to have been 10 years.  So a woman who was working for a company but stopped to have children could lose any entitlement.

So her age and any details about her life in general may be very pertinent.  

westv

Brie said:

I agree with Marcon about thinking about how old she is.  I know that work pensions were few and far between before the 1970s and right up until the late 80s/early 90s it was very easy to lose or be denied any benefit for various reasons - particularly if one was a woman.  Joining age might have been as high as 25, continuous full time service might need to have been 10 years.  So a woman who was working for a company but stopped to have children could lose any entitlement.

So her age and any details about her life in general may be very pertinent.  

Yes, my first employer had a joining age as high as that.