•  Aviva, Royal London, Hargreaves Lansdown and Smart Pension become latest backers, joining  Scottish Widows, Legal and General, Aegon and Standard Life in annual campaign.

• Industry unites to help people track down an estimated £19bn in overlooked or mislaid pensions.

• Cost-of-living crisis forms the background to this year’s campaign, urging people to use the extra hour when the clocks go back to search for their pensions, potentially worth thousands of pounds.

Punter Southall Aspire has brought on board more of the UK’s biggest pension and investment companies to drive forward with National Pension Tracing Day (NPTD) on Sunday, 30^th October.

Aviva, Royal London, Hargreaves Lansdown and Smart Pensions have signed up alongside existing backers, Scottish Widows, Aegon, Legal and General, Standard Life to encourage people to check pensions they may have overlooked, worth an estimated £19bn.

Just these companies alone manage or administer pensions, savings and investments for more than 20 million people and their scale and influence helps spread the pension-tracing message far and wide.

Created and launched by Punter Southall Aspire last year, 2022 sees further momentum building for NPTD to make sure savers know the steps they can take to check if they’re entitled to one of the possible 1.6 million pots left unclaimed.

It launched the NPTD website, to help to track down money which could make a real difference, particularly during the acute cost-of-living crisis affecting millions of Britons.

The campaign urges people to use the extra hour when the clocks go back to try the government’s free Pension Tracing Service and find out if they are among an estimated one in thirty people entitled to an average £13,000.

A big factor is thought to be people changing jobs – on average 11 times – and moving house, typically eight times, but forgetting to tell their pension company about their new details.

Punter Southall Aspire’s director of communications, Johanna Nelson, said:

“With the cost-of-living soaring, this campaign is about reminding people that this money is safe, but it has been forgotten. We are really proud of the waves we made in our first year and, together with our original sponsors, we are delighted we can carry on this year with four of the largest pension and investment companies joining. It’s great to see industry colleagues unite behind us and add their powerful voices to this campaign.

“This campaign is as much about individuals as it is employers. Last year, someone who worked at a client of ours found £80,000 – a life changing amount. We urge employers and trustees to promote the NPTD website to help their people. We’ll also be releasing a communications toolkit. Both are free to use.”

Punter Southall Aspire’s Chief Commercial Officer, Alan Morahan, said:

“This is an issue long acknowledged by the regulator and industry alike.  As we are finding out, it can happen to anyone. Set aside an hour to check, you have everything to gain.

“Pensions have a reputation for being boring and complex but it doesn’t have to be this way. Styling it as a treasure hunt means we have turned humdrum form-filling into what could be X marks the spot.”

When it comes to pensions, one factor is crucial; size. Of course, how much you need in your pension pot depends on the retirement lifestyle you want to have. However, as a general rule, your pension pot should be as large as possible.

Building up your pension pot is a long-term process. Consequently, the sooner you start, the more time you have to accumulate your funds. Also, your retirement age is a consideration as the earlier you want to retire, the less time you’ll have to save.

This article aims to provide you with five ways to boost your pension. It will also inform you how the age you want to retire compares to the rest of the UK and three factors influencing when you can retire.

Five ways to boost your pension.

1. Start saving now.

Every day is one day closer to your retirement. Therefore, failing to start saving today means you have lost another opportunity to build your retirement funds. By starting to save now, you will give yourself the best chance to maximise your pension pot.

2. Make regular top-up payments.

Even making small regular top-up payments, or whenever you can, makes a significant difference to your pension pot. Remember, your pension contributions qualify for tax relief and will experience compound interest growth.

3. Remain within your workplace pension scheme.

Being auto-enrolled into a workplace pension scheme is a fantastic benefit for millions of workers. You don’t have to do any administration, and your 4% contributions are taken at source. You’ll also benefit from tax relief and a 3% contribution from your employer. Therefore, you should only ever choose to opt-out of a workplace pension in the direst circumstances.

4. Regularly check your pension.

You will put a significant amount of money into your pension pot. Therefore, it makes sense that you should keep an eye on your investment. Your pension could suffer from high charges or poor performance.

Both of these could erode your pension funds. Failing to regularly check your pension means you could be unaware of these. Consequently, your funds could be diminishing without your knowledge.

5. Keep working a bit longer.

Remaining in work for a few years beyond your planned retirement will have a couple of benefits. Firstly, you will continue contributing to your pension pot without using those funds. Secondly, your pension funds will continue to receive tax relief and compound interest growth. These few additional years could make a significant difference to the size of your pot.

Three factors affect when you can retire.

People have aspirations to retire at different ages. Regardless of when you want to retire, here are three factors affecting when you can do so:

Extended working lives.

Generally speaking, people are working longer than they used to. The number of employed men and women in the 60-64-year-old bracket has grown significantly in the last decade. Indeed, almost twice as many women are now employed, and the number of men in work has increased by 14.3%. Today, around a quarter of 65-69-year-old men are still working. This compares to only 15% 10 years ago.

Rising State Pension qualifying age.

The State Pension qualifying age for men and women has equalised at 65. This situation is the first time parity has been reached in the 100 years since the state pension was introduced. Despite receiving the pension at 65, almost half of employed women don’t plan to retire until they are 67. 

The maximum state pension you could receive is currently £179.60 for a week. If you don’t believe this is sufficient to provide the retirement lifestyle you desire, you should put other provisions in place.

Increased pension flexibility.

Pension freedoms were introduced in 2015, giving people more flexibility in accessing their pension funds. From 55, you can now take your pension as a lump sum for certain pensions. However, only the first 25% is tax-free. Therefore, you should consider the tax implications of taking too much money from your pension pot.

Of course, you can take the tax-free amount and leave the remaining funds invested in providing an income. You can also leave your entire funds invested to generate maximum income each month. Before making any significant decision regarding your pension, it is a good idea to consult a regulated financial advisor. Check out Portafina. 

The cost of living crisis has left nine in ten people struggling to make ends meet and concerned about funding their retirement, according to new research.

To address this, many people are reducing their savings including their pension contributions.

Over half are no longer able to save as they want to and 13 per cent say they plan to stop or reduce their pension contributions to save money in the short term – increasing to 21 per cent of 18-34 years old.

Alan Morahan, Chief Commercial Officer at Punter Southall Aspire, a financial planning and retirement savings business, said, “It’s not surprising that as household budgets get squeezed people look for ways to cut back their spending and pension contributions could be reduced or stopped completely.

However, people should be encouraged to look at other ways of saving money before considering the pension option.

In the UK, pensions are already woefully underfunded as demonstrated by this survey from Cushon, which estimated that people aged between 50 and 64 have pension savings that are on average 58 per cent short of what they need, adding up to a total annual savings gap of £132bn.

“Before reducing or ceasing pension contributions people should look at all other bills and see if these can be reduced. They should set a mantra of ‘I’m going to get it for less’ and challenge every insurance renewal, review every subscription e.g. Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime and, whilst it might not be possible to reduce energy costs, it might be possible to get reductions on landline and mobile phone bills and broadband costs.

“We recommend that people trawl the memory banks to see if they’ve got money lost down the back of what might be referred to as the cyber-sofa. This could be money on payment apps like PayPal, holiday cash cards, travel cards like Oyster, gift cards, or even in a betting account set up to have a flutter on the Grand National.

“All avenues should be explored before cutting pension contributions because no one wants the difficult times we’re experiencing now to become the reality for their retirement years.”