Have you activated your online Retirement Savings Account? Click here to find out how: https://www.tpt.co.uk/sign-in/

How much money will you need to live life your way? Click here to find out how much income you’ll need to support your lifestyle: https://www.tpt.co.uk/news-insights/do-you-know-what-income-you-might-need-for-retirement/

Most people spend around a third of their life in retirement, so it’s really important to plan it carefully and make the right decisions. Click here to find out how financial guidance and advice can help you.

Pensions information can easily go missing for a number of reasons, including:

• moving address
• misplacing paperwork
• changing contact details such as address or phone number

Currently, there’s over £26 billion in ‘lost’ pensions in the UK that have not been claimed by people.

Fortunately, you can make sure you track down all your old pension pots by either contacting your previous employers or using the Government Pension Tracing Service.

Once you have found all your pension pots, you can then decide whether you would like to keep them separate or merge them into a single pot as seen on next page.

For more information on tracing lost pensions, click here.

If you’ve been in the scheme for more than 30 days

Once you’ve been a member of the scheme for over 30 days, you have two options available to you if you decide to stop paying in:
1. You can leave your pension pot invested (and become what is known as a ‘deferred member’) until you are ready to start taking your savings, or
2. You can choose to transfer the value of your TPT pension pot to another registered pension arrangement.

If you’ve been in the scheme for less than 30 days

Once you have been automatically enrolled in the scheme, you have 30 days to choose if you’d like to opt out. If you choose to opt out within the first 30 days, you will be treated as though you were never a member of the scheme.

This means any contributions that have been deducted from your pay will be returned to you by Payroll (after any relevant tax deductions).

To opt out of the scheme, you need to complete an Opt Out Notice Form.

Once completed, please return to the Payroll team who will then instruct TPT.

If you change your mind and wish to start (or re-start) contributing to your pension, please contact the Payroll team.

Need help with your pension? Click here to get in touch with our team at TPT.

If you are taking a cash lump sum from your pension to invest elsewhere, or plan to transfer your pension pot in order to take a flexible income, be aware that scammers may operate in these markets and you could risk losing money. Scammers use increasingly sophisticated methods to con people out of their life savings, so it’s essential to stay alert to any warning signs.

Please don’t assume ‘it could never happen to me’.

Make sure you know what to look out for and how to spot an offer or a request that isn’t legitimate:

• If you’re sent online resources, always double-check the website address is the same as the address shown in any official communications.
• Reject unexpected offers – these often originate from unsolicited text or social media messages. Such contact are illegal and are likely a scam.
• Always check who you’re dealing with – make sure they are FCA authorised and not a ‘clone firm’.
• Don’t be rushed or pressured into making a decision – even if it sounds like a great deal. If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
• Get impartial advice with an FCA authorised financial adviser before making any changes to your pension.

You can find out more about how to identify scams on the Financial Conduct Authority’s website:
https://www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart/how-avoid-pension-scams