Number of lost pensions set to skyrocket in future

FIGURES vary but the value of lost pension pots is soaring, sector commentators acknowledge.

- Rob Kenyon

So much so that tracking them down is almost becoming an industry in its own right.

Organisations highlighting the problem include the Government's Pension Tracing Service, the Pension Policy Institute (PPI), the Pension Attention Campaign (PAC), Pension Bee, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and Gretel.

According to the ABI, the value of lost pension pots has risen by 60 per cent since 2018, with 3.3 million considered lost, at an average sum of £9,470.

A study by the PPI, sponsored by the PAC, found there was £31.1 billion lying in unclaimed, inactive, or lost pots.

Pension Bee claims one in 10 workers believe they have lost a pension pot worth more than £10,000, with an estimated 4.8 million pots already missing in the UK, many down to young people not keeping track.

It cites £50 billion worth at risk of being misplaced in abandoned accounts or scattered across multiple lost pots and adds: “As the total number of pension pots is expected to rise 130% to 243 million by 2050, the number of lost pensions could skyrocket”