Money sitting in pension funds, shares or other investments that has been forgotten about, or that belongs to someone who’s lost touch with their account, can now be transferred to the Government’s Dormant Assets Scheme.
I used to work at a large UK pensions company. One day, a colleague happened to mention that we had more customers on the books who were aged over 100 than there were people that old alive in the whole country.
I was confused. Was this complicated financial engineering? Some kind of actuarial magic? Did we offer something that somehow attracted centenarians from around the world?
But no. Another colleague explained it to me slowly and patiently. Most of these customers had, of course, passed away – but worse, their families and next of kin had forgotten or never even known about the money that should have been theirs. And because the pension firm had no way to contact the families, these investments and savings just sat there.
However, since 2022, it has been possible for pension firms, investment, and wealth management firms to transfer these orphaned – or dormant – assets away to the Dormant Assets Scheme, run by Reclaim Fund Ltd (RFL). They are then used to support good causes through the National Lottery Community Fund. At the start of 2025, it was announced that assets given to good causes in this way had surpassed the £1 billion mark![1]
Financial firms voluntarily participate in the scheme, and can decide how many of the eligible dormant assets they hold to transfer and how often. And make no mistake, there are lots of forgotten assets – when the scheme was expanded in 2022, it was conservatively estimated in June 2023 that a potential extra £575 million in dormant life insurance and pensions policies could be unlocked and it is predicted that the expansion of the scheme in mid-2024 may potentially unlock a further £880 million.
Given the wide range of savings and investments that are now covered, if you or a family member have had just about any kind of investment (which for whatever reason you’ve forgotten about), it may end up being tagged as a dormant asset and handed over. And while it’s easy to think ‘it would never happen to me’, remember that we’re all so busy these days that we lack the time to keep on top of everything – even our money!
If you have had money from a lost account or pension that has been transferred to the Dormant Assets Scheme, you can still reclaim your money – and indeed many have, to the tune of £15 million in 2021/22 alone[2].
So, what should you do? Well, if you think that you or a loved one has money or investments that have become stranded in a pension, investment or bank account, you might want to:
- check for old paperwork
- use one of the tracing services
- get a good financial adviser so it doesn’t happen in future!
[1]https://www.reclaimfund.co.uk/uk-dormant-assets-scheme-reaches-ps1-billion-milestone-distributions-good-causes
[2] https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp23-12.pdf
This article was written by Wealth Management Consultant, David Banks.
Content correct at time of writing (January 2025).
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