How can members trace their benefits?

How can members trace their benefits?

When benefits become payable, the member will be contacted at the last known address on file. 

However, if the member has since moved; the documents may be returned. 

Trustees, pension administrators, providers and employers do everything possible to trace the member and can ask the DWP to forward on correspondence to the member via the letter forwarding service.

For members it’s easy to lose track of pension funds over the years and they may not remember if they are entitled to any benefits or if they took a refund or a transfer.

• They may have moved house, changed jobs a few times and paid into a series of pension schemes during their working life.
• A company may have merged or been taken over by another company and schemes merged.
• An employer may have gone into liquidation, into the Pension Protection Fund or been bought out.
• The scheme administrator or provider may have changed.

Pension Tracing Service

There are various free tracing services available but the government one is the Pension Tracing Service.

It can be accessed via a link on www.gov.uk or directly at www.gov.uk/find-lost-pension

A member needs to provide as much information as possible including:

• Name and address of employer that provided the scheme
• Scheme name or any part of a name that the member can recall

If the Pension Tracing Service can find the pension it will give the member the address of the scheme provider for the member to contact them directly.