How to: use the pension finder tool

If you've had several jobs, you'll probably have several pensions. And if you don't know where all yours are, you're not alone. That’s why we’ve created the free AJ Bell Pension finder. We’ll have you set up in minutes, leaving you to sit back and relax while your pension assistant does the detective work for you. And once you’ve found your pensions, it couldn’t be simpler to combine them in a self-invested personal pension with AJ Bell. Here’s how to get up and running. First, head over to our site’s main navigation bar.

Then, in the “My account” menu, choose “Pension finder”, which you’ll find just below “Update my details”. Before you give us info about your previous employers, we first need to check your personal details are correct. Having up-to-date details will help us when we’re communicating with your pension providers. If anything needs correcting, hit the ‘No, I need to edit’ button to be taken to the ‘Update my details’ page. Or if everything looks fine, just click ‘All good, let’s get started’. To tell us to look for a lost pension, first enter the name of the employer you opened the pension with.

Then, tell us when you started and finished working there. If you know the employer's post code, it would make our search easier if you told us that, too. When you’re happy with the information you’ve provided, hit the ‘Next’ button. Alternatively, if you know your pension provider, their name is all you need to give us. It’ll also help if you can supply your plan number too, but that’s optional – so don’t worry if you don’t have it. Want to search for multiple pensions? Just click the ‘Add more pensions’ button. You can enter information on as many pensions as you want. Once you’re told us about all the pensions you’d like us to look for, hit the ‘Next’ button.

To allow us to send letters to your pension providers on your behalf, we’ll also need your signature. Rest assured that we’ll only use the signature to help track down your old pensions. When entering your signature here, please make sure it’s clear and takes up the majority of the available space. After that, your search will be successfully submitted. We’ll then take you to your Pension finder dashboard, where you can see the statuses of your pension searches. At first, while we’re contacting your pension providers, they’ll all show as ‘Searching’. But once we’ve found your pensions, this will change. Any pensions that we can’t find will move into “unsuccessful pensions”. All the while, your dedicated pension assistant will keep you up to date on their search. You can also check your progress, any time, by logging into your account and visiting your Pension finder dashboard.

Once you’ve found any of your pensions, you can see more information about them by clicking “View”. You can also transfer any of your found pensions to AJ Bell. If you don’t already hold a SIPP with us, you can go straight to the application by hitting ‘Open a SIPP’. Or if you have a SIPP with us already, you can start the transfer process by hitting the ‘Begin transfer’ button. Having your pensions under one roof puts doesn't just make your admin easier. When you combine your pots in an AJ Bell Self-invested personal pension, you can look forward to more control and potentially lower costs too. Just remember that as you’ll be in charge of choosing your investments, you'll need to be confident about taking matters into your own hands.