Overview
- MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis told viewers that Gretel, a private tracing service, estimates about 3.3 million pension pots are lost and worth roughly £65 billion in total, with an average lost pot near £20,000.
- People commonly lose track of pensions when they move home, change their name, switch jobs, or when firms merge or rebrand, which fragments workplace pension records over a working life.
- Lewis advised starting by searching old paperwork and contacting the pension provider, then using the government Pension Tracing Service to get current contact details for schemes.
- He also recommended third-party tools such as Gretel and My Lost Account; Gretel works with participating firms and uses a soft credit search to confirm identity, while the government service provides administrator contacts but not account balances.
- Family members may reclaim a deceased person’s pensions or accounts only if they are legally entitled to do so, and the £65 billion figure is a private estimate rather than an official government total.