Bring your pensions together

It depends on your individual circumstances. For pension pots smaller than £10,000, it can be more tax efficient to leave them where they are. Any exit charges might be too high. And you could just prefer the investment options your old pension offers.

You might want to consolidate your pensions to one product, for lower fees and charges or to make it easier to see how much you’ve saved. But you might have good reasons not to transfer or consolidate a particular pension. For example, if:

• Your existing pension has lower charges or penalties for transferring.
• You'd lose benefits or guarantees - we can't accept 'final salary' schemes, plans invested in with profit funds and those with guaranteed benefits.
• The pension is still being paid into by an employer - we can't accept active workplace pensions.

Remember also that our Workplace Pensions invest in stocks and shares, so the value of your investment can go down as well as up. That means its value isn't guaranteed and you may get less back than you put in. Before making a decision, you should compare pension products and maybe get financial advice.

Yes, you can trace your pensions by using the Government's Pension Tracing Service and contacting your previous employers and pension providers yourself. Once you know where all of your pensions are you would need to check each one to decide whether consolidating is the best thing to do before applying for a product to consolidate them to.

You can find a local adviser at Unbiased. They can advise you on any aspect of consolidation, from pension charges to investment choices.