•  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.”