Mrs Eileen Spence and her husband Peter: Pension worth thousands was finally tracked down after a decade-long search
I accumulated a small company pension in the mid 1980s with a company called Intercontinental Medical Statistics, a This is Money reader asked in a previous column on finding lost pensions by Steve Webb.
I have tried all the conventional methods to trace this money but without success.
The question I would like to ask is why, when I have an Employee Benefit Statement from a British insurance company, I cannot trace the pension?
The difficulty appears to stem from the fact that the insurance company concerned, Norwich Union, is no longer in business.
However, it is known that the pension assets of NU were taken over, it’s just that no-one can tell me who controls them now. I wonder how many others are in this difficulty.
SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK STEVE YOUR PENSION QUESTION
Steve Webb replies: The saga of trying to track down your missing pension has been going on for a long time.
You started your hunt for the pension over a decade ago when you retired, and it was late last year when you first contacted This is Money.
I wrote a column in April of this year in which I told the story to date but with the trail having run cold: Steve Webb’s five top tips for finding old pots.
However, I’m delighted to say that your pension has been found and you have been reunited with it!
I thought that regular readers of my column might be interested to know the outcome.
In the process of trying to track down your pension pot we tried a range of tactics including contacting the different organisations who had administered your pension and contacting the different pension providers who had been responsible for it.
The experience of looking for your pension prompted me to summarise different strategies for finding lost pensions in a free guide published by my company LCP.
Got a question for Steve Webb? Scroll down to find out how to contact him
One of the tips in the guide is to think about the employer who was connected to the pension.
Although your former employer has changed its name, a search on the internet suggested that the business now comes under a company called IQVIA.
I probably should have contacted them sooner, but I initially assumed that as a multinational company with offices all over the world, the chances they would even respond to me, let alone have information about a UK pension from the 1980s would be rather slim.
However, I did manage to find contact details for the Pensions Manager at IQVIA, who was in fact very helpful.
It turned out that they did still hold a pension for you but there had been some confusion because it was in the name of a Mr E Spence and you – of course – are Mrs E Spence.
When you rang the pension administrators yourself some time ago they didn’t spot that there was another member with your surname and other details matching and wrongly told you that there was no pension.
Therefore, here is another tip for finding lost pensions. If you contact a scheme which you are certain you were a member of but administrators cannot find you on the system, ask if it is possible also to do a search for a match based on just some of your details, to see there is another member whose details match yours in every other respect.
If your name is often misspelled, you could also them to check for common typos.
Polite persistence might be required to get a scheme to do this on your behalf, but a letter requesting this search and including other key details they can cross check like date of birth and period of employment might just do the trick.
I’m pleased to say that in your case the pensions manager at IQVIA has chased things up and you’ve now had a letter setting out your options, and also offering a payment in recognition of the ‘distress and inconvenience’ you have faced.
Your options included receiving a payment of arrears for more than a decade of missed pension payments or taking the whole thing out as a lump sum – running to thousands of pounds – which you have decided to do.
You have told me that you are delighted with the outcome saying: ‘When you consider that only a month or so ago I considered my pension lost to me the turnaround in my fortunes, literally, has been amazing.’
I’m pleased I was able to help!
Ask Steve Webb a pension question
Former pensions minister Steve Webb is This Is Money’s agony uncle.
He is ready to answer your questions, whether you are still saving, in the process of stopping work, or juggling your finances in retirement.
Steve left the Department for Work and Pensions after the May 2015 election. He is now a partner at actuary and consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock.
If you would like to ask Steve a question about pensions, please email him at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.
Steve will do his best to reply to your message in a forthcoming column, but he won’t be able to answer everyone or correspond privately with readers. Nothing in his replies constitutes regulated financial advice. Published questions are sometimes edited for brevity or other reasons.
Please include a daytime contact number with your message – this will be kept confidential and not used for marketing purposes.
If Steve is unable to answer your question, you can also contact MoneyHelper, a Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. It can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.
Steve receives many questions about state pension forecasts and COPE – the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent. If you are writing to Steve on this topic, he responds to a typical reader question about COPE and the state pension here.
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