Pension and Child Trust Fund Finding Service

Since auto-enrolment introduced a requirement, in 2012, for every employer to automatically enrol employees into a workplace pension, the number of workplace pensions in the UKhas increased ten-fold.

Unless you specifically chose to opt out of your workplace schemes, the chances are that you have a pension for every job you’ve held during that time.

If you aren’t completely sure where all your pension contributions have been invested, the chances are you could have a pot with your name on it somewhere – or even, several.

The good news is, it is now easy to reclaim your lost pension savings.

Pension consolidation just means tidying up your retirement savings by putting them all in one place.

If you’ve changed jobs a few times, you might have multiple workplace pensions sitting with different providers. Consolidating means transferring those separate pots into a single pension — often into your current workplace scheme or a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension).

People do this to make their pensions easier to manage, reduce paperwork, keep track of performance more easily, and sometimes to lower fees. However, it’s important to check for any exit charges, valuable guarantees, or special benefits before moving a pension, as these could be lost on transfer.

A Child Trust Fund (CTF) is a tax-free savings or investment account that the government set up for children born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011. The government paid in an initial contribution, and family and friends could add to it over the years. The money belongs to the child and becomes accessible when they turn 18, at which point they can withdraw it or transfer it into an adult ISA.

If you were born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, you might just have a tidy sum of unclaimed money with your name on it.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is waving a big reminder flag at young people across the UK because latest official data shows that a staggering 758,000 young adults aged 18–23 have unclaimed funds averaging around £2,242 each, sitting in forgotten Child Trust Fund accounts.

Child Trust Funds were an initiative set up by the government in the early 2000s. The idea was that all children, when they reached the age of 18, should have access to a pot of money to help them get started in their adult life.

For those lucky children born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, the state put in at least £250 (sometimes more for families on lower incomes), with the aim that over the years that money could grow with interest or investment gains. Once you turned 18, the account matured and became yours to claim — but many people simply forgot about it or never knew it existed.

A Child Trust Fund may have been lost if a child or their parents have:

• Lost track of one that was taken out many years ago
• Switched banks (even once)
• Moved house
• Been married, divorced or remarried
• Invested the CTF with an organisation that was merged or taken over

Have a look through old paperwork to see if you can find anything relating to your lost account. If it’s a pension, the paperwork will likely be from your workplace pension provider. These are companies such as Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity, Royal London, Scottish Widows or Legal and General. If you know all the places you have worked and your dates of employment, this could also help if you’re looking for a pension. You could try calling your former workplaces’ HR department to ask for details if you can’t remember who your employer invested your pension with.

If it’s a Child Trust Fund you’re tracking down, it may have been set up with a building society or bank. Your paperwork should have some kind of client number or reference number on. That can be useful in helping you find your money faster because it means you can go directly to the provider for answers.

But if you don’t have any paperwork, don’t panic – it’s still possible to track your money down. There are tracing services – including this one – which are designed to find old pots of money with limited information.

We’ve partnered with Gretel, which only requires your name and address to start looking for your old accounts.

There are benefits to consolidating your pensions, but also some potential drawbacks to be aware of:

Benefits of pension consolidation

One of the big advantages of combining all of your pensions is that you will be able to easily see how much you have saved in one place which makes admin a whole lot easier. You won’t have multiple accounts to keep track of.

You are also much less likely to accidentally forget about some of your pension savings when planning your retirement.

Consolidating old pensions can be a way to lower the overall fees you’re paying out. Older pots offer charge higher fees, which can eat away at your savings.

Data revealed through a freedom of information request to the City watchdog, the FCA, last year found around 10million pensions are held in ‘closed book’ accounts, which typically charge fees of around 1% – far higher than the average of 2% most schemes now charge.

Downsides of consolidation

By moving your pension from one scheme to another, you could potentially be giving up valuable benefits that come with one of your existing pensions. That’s why it’s vital to check if your pension has any benefits attached to it before transferring out of a scheme. Your provider will be able to tell you this.

It’s also important to make sure you are not switching to a scheme with higher fees, unless those fees are justified – for example, if the new pension provides a service that is valuable to you and you can’t find elsewhere.

Make sure you check the charges you will have to pay before you move.