01 Oct 2025

How to help employees to reunite with their lost pensions

Here’s how to help employees track down and bring old pensions together into one place.

By 2024, UK savers had lost track of more than 3 million pension pots - the equivalent of over £31 billion in lost pension savings - according to research by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI).

The same report shows the number of missing pots more than doubled since 2018. That’s a lot of lost pension savings, which could make a big difference to many people’s future retirement income.

It’s likely at least some of your employees’ retirement savings fall into the ‘missing pensions’ category. But here’s the good news: as an employer, you can help reunite them with their lost pensions and support them to save for their financial future.

Why are there so many lost pension pots?

Changing jobs is one of the main reasons people lose track of their old pensions. That’s because whenever someone starts a new job, their employer will sign them up to a new workplace pension scheme. Given that most people will have several jobs throughout their lifetime, it’s easy to see how old pots can be forgotten.

And if people move house and forget to tell their pension provider their new address (which, let’s be honest, is easy to do) then you can see how they can lose track of that pension pot.

How to help employees find their lost pensions

It’s common for employees not to know how to find their lost pensions, so raising awareness is a good idea.

First, it’s worth sending out regular communications to remind employees to keep their pension details up to date. This could prevent pensions getting left behind in the first place if employees move house or their circumstances change.

Next, let employees know how they can locate their lost pensions. The Government’s Pensions Tracing Service is a good place to start.

If you have a Standard Life workplace scheme, employees are able to use the Pension Finder tool, available through Money Mindset. This works by scanning their employment history on LinkedIn and using these details to automatically search the Pension Tracing Service – making it quick and easy to find old pensions.

So once your employees have found their pension pot, what’s next?

While it might be tempting to file the information away into the drawer of forgotten paperwork, there is an option which might make it easier for them to stay in control of their savings: bringing their pensions together into one place.

What are the potential benefits of combining pensions?

‘Combining pensions’. ‘Pension transfers’. ‘Consolidation’. Your employees may have come across these terms and wonder what they all mean. They all refer to the same thing – bringing different pensions together into the same pot.

With a pension transfer, employees can bring all their pension savings together into one plan, rather than having them spread out over a few pots.

That means they’ll have everything in one place, making it easier for them to see how much they’ve got – and giving them more clarity over their future.

Plus, they won’t need to manage multiple pensions anymore. This could save them a lot of time and admin, not to mention save them from the worry of forgetting old pension pots.

Of course, it’s important that your employees think about if transferring is right for them. They’ll need to check they’re not giving up any valuable benefits or guarantees if they transfer, as they may want to keep these. Also, the value of investments can go down as well as up, and employees may get back less than was paid in.

Tolearn more, employees can sign up for our on-demand event, ‘Is it time to combine pension pots?’.

Help your employees decide what’s right for them

Combining pensions is an important decision to make, so it’s a good idea to signpost your employees to information that can help, such as MoneyHelper.

If you have a Standard Life workplace pension scheme, our pension transfer hub has a range of support materials that can help your employees decide if they should combine.

Plus, employees can get direct access to support through Money Mindset, where they can find bitesize content and tools to help them decide, as well as combine online.