How to combine pensions

We’re likely to change jobs an average of 11 times throughout our working lives. Factor in a few house moves and a couple of life milestones, it’s hardly surprising that we lose track of the odd pension along the way.

In some cases, you may have received a refund of contributions if you left service within two years, so there’s actually no pension pot to trace.

There’s various ways of tracking down your pensions, here are some of your options:

HMRC provide an online tracing service. In just a couple of steps you may find the information you’re looking for and, a contact that you can send your Zippen information request to findpensioncontacts.service.gov.uk.

If you prefer, you can call the Pension Tracing Service on 0800 731 0193.

Contact your former employers

Get in touch with the HR department at your previous employment(s) and ask if you might have been a member of their pension scheme. It’s possible that they’ll know which provider the pension scheme was with at the time of your employment, although they mightn’t know if you were actually a member - this isn’t a problem, Zippen can find out for you just using the provider name.

Let’s be honest, it can be a little awkward approaching a former employer, also, what if this employer no longer exists? You could…

Phone a friend

Track down some old colleagues through friends or maybe via Instagram/Facebook/Linkedin etc and find out what they know – maybe they’ve been through a similar process and will know the answer straightaway.

Ask the audience

If you have an inkling that the “lost” pension was possibly with a certain provider – let us get in touch with them! They’ll soon say if they can’t trace you and there’s absolutely no harm in asking. Even if the pension provider no longer exists in its own right, our system knows which pension company took over another and will know who to contact.

Ask Zippen

Still stuck? No problem. Email tracing@zippen.co.uk and tell us two things:

– The name of your former employer
– The dates of your employment

Let’s see what we can find.