How do you find out where your pensions are and how much they're worth?

[Greedybilly]

Im 54 and have probably 6-8 private pensions from working in different places ( charities and 5 yrs at a LA ) how do i find out how/when I can access these pensions and there worth. Financial adviser? Help! Thanks

Google pension tracing. There is government website that can assist you

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

Do you have any paperwork for them? If not can you contact the companies youworked for to ask who they used?

They will all send annual statements so do you have any of those? If you have moved house then they will be being sent to old addresses.

Start a spreadsheet with all your employers, dates of employment, and policy info from statements and any other relevant information (for example if the employer changed name or was acquired etc). You can then try the tracing link listed by pp as well to continue backfilling the data. Most will have online portals you can log in to get up to date information.

As and when you start tracing them, ensure your address and contact details are up to date, BUT ALSO the nominated beneficiaries.

Once you have collated everything, you may want to consider consolidating them all into one pension for ease of future management, but this depends on the type of pension and any special benefits etc. And there's no rush, they will still be payable whether they're in one pot or twenty!

Thanks all. Much appreciated.xx

I have tried and tried to find a pension (that I paid into for 6 years) with a previous employer and not had any luck. It's driven me a bit mad for the last 6 months so I've stopped looking for a while until I think of a new way to look into it.
The employers HR can't trace me as an employee as they say it was too long ago and they don't have paper records anymore. They also can't tell me which company/bank/scheme handled the pensions during the years I was there. I have no letters and no playslips that mention the pension. I've tried an independent search organisation and they couldn't find it either.

I'm at a loss now but I know I had about £6K in there 20 years ago 😥

@GoodLaudanum The MSE program this week was about pensions & there were companies you could use in addition to the government website. Maybe you could watch it on catch up & get the name

Previous colleagues who paid into same scheme? Shout out on local community pages to see if people know? Sounds like the HR are crap. Surely they completed records.

They are meant to be bringing in a pension tracer using NI numbers but it’s delayed

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-dashboards-guidance-on-connection-the-staged-timetable/pensions-dashboards-guidance-on-connection-the-staged-timetable

Gretel.co.uk

It was all on paper back then so I guess it all gets shredded after a certain amount of time. My fault - I should have kept payslips and paperwork but I must have cleared it out without realising as I would only have been early 30's and not really thinking about pensions.

Yes will ask an ex colleague that I still chat too occasionally.

As you say you worked for a LA, mainly local government pension schemes (LGPS) are/ were run by the County Councils so that would be a starting point. Most will have portals. There is a LGPS Facebook Group with lots of info and expertise.

Your LGPS pension will be what is known as a Defined Benefit (DB) scheme, where you get a defined amount out of it, so broadly what used to be final salary schemes (it may or may not be final salary depending on when it's from). The schemes changed in 2008 and 2014 and each scheme has different provisions. These pensions don't have a "pot" value.

You may have other DB pension as well (I'm 56 and I have two early DB schemes).

The other type of pension are the more modern Defined Contribution (DC) where you pay in and the pot has a value that you can then choose how to use in the future by drawing down or an annuity etc.

You wouldn't usually want to consolidate DB schemes into DC pots, DB schemes pay for your lifetime so never run out.

Sorry if this is a bit of a lecture but this is what confused me when I started to get an understanding of what pensions I had kicking around.

You can't consolidate DB schemes with DC schemes. A DC scheme has a pot of money attributed to the saver. A DB scheme is a guarantee of a certain level of income depending on how long you worked and there is no defined pot of money that belongs to the saver. It's one big pot held by the LGPS and invested with the overall aim of being able to meet their contractual obligations to pay out a certain level. DC schemes can be passed on post death because they are a defined pot of money. DB schemes can't other than to a very limited extent (but pay out at a far higher rate than DC schemes during the lifetime of the saver).

It's not a useful discussion for the OP but technically you can get a transfer out of LGPS, realistically you wouldn't want to in most circumstances and for over I think £30k transfer value you'd need adviser advice which probably wouldn't be given. It's also of course possible to take a large lump sum.

It's all a bit complex I suspect for the OP at the moment, it just seemed helpful to point out the difference given that she likely has both types of pension as people often go looking for a value if a DB pension to equate to a DC pot.