How to check your pension contributions

Keeping track of your pension contributions is as important as checking you have enough fuel for a long journey. It's a way of ensuring that the money you're saving now will be enough for you to enjoy your retirement later. 

This includes checking money saved in your workplace pension, any personal pensions you've set up, and understanding how tax relief adds to your savings. 

If you ever lose track of any of your pensions, don’t worry – there are ways to find them again and get back on course. 

Your workplace pension is a key part of your retirement savings. Both you and your employer add money to your current workplace pension. 

To check how much you've contributed, you can:

• Look at your latest payslip. It usually shows your pension contributions.
• Contact your HR department. They can tell you more about your contributions and how the scheme works.
• Read your pension statement. These are usually sent by your pension provider once a year and will give you a complete rundown of your contributions and pension value.
• Contact the pension provider for a detailed breakdown of your contributions over time. Your employer will be able to give you their contact details or  they’ll usually be a telephone number in any paperwork they send you.

Personal pensions you set up yourself give you the flexibility to manage your retirement savings independently. To track your contributions, you can:

• Review your bank statements. Look for regular payments to your pension provider.
• Read your yearly pension statement.
• Contact your pension provider directly. They can give you a statement showing your contributions. If you have online access to your pension, you might be able to use it to check your statement without contacting them directly.

Tax relief boosts your pension contributions by reducing the amount you pay in tax. This means you get more out of the money you pay into your pension, giving you more money for when you retire. It’s important to first understand the relief that you're entitled to. Basic rate taxpayers automatically get 20% added to their contributions. As an example, for every £80 you put into your pension, the government will throw in another £20, bringing the total contribution to £100.  Higher and additional rate taxpayers can claim back an extra 20% or 25%, respectively, through their tax return, which is not automatically added to their pension pot but reduces their overall tax bill.

There's an annual limit on the amount that can be contributed to your pension which is £60,000 for most people.  

Here's how to check the tax relief on your pension contributions: 

• If you're a higher or additional rate taxpayer, you may need to claim the extra relief through your tax return.
• If you’ve additional contributions to  a scheme which doesn’t claim tax relief on your contributions, you’ll need to claim any tax relief you’re due through your tax return.
• Contact your pension provider. They can confirm the tax relief applied to your contribution within the scheme.
• Review your tax returns. If you claim additional tax relief, your returns will show the amount claimed.
• Read your pension statement, which should include the tax relief you’ve received against each contribution.
• Contact HMRC if you need to claim any additional tax relief from them. They will usually ask you to complete a self-assessment tax return. More information is available here. You can usually claim any tax relief you've missed in the four previous tax years.

If you lose track of a pension, don’t worry. There’s some things you can do to find it again.

• Find out more about pension tracing our Find and Combine service can help you find lost workplace or personal pensions.
• Checking your old payslips or bank statements. These might include details that can lead you to a forgotten pension.

If you’d also like to combine your pensions into one pot to make them easier to manage, our Find and Combine service can also help you with this.

Aviva's Find and Combine service

This free, easy-to-use service can help you to find your lost pensions. It should give you a complete view of all your lost and existing pensions.

You can then decide whether to combine them into a single Aviva pension, although there’s no obligation to do so. Bear in mind that the value of your pensions can go down as well as up, so, once you consolidate them, you could get back less than you’ve put in.  

You can get started with Find and Combine here.

Putting all your pensions together into one pot can really help make things easier when it comes to planning for retirement. 

It means you only have to keep track of one pension rather than lots of different ones. This can make life a lot simpler and might even save you money on fees, as you’ll only have charges for one pension to worry about. Plus, with all your retirement money in one place, it’s easier to make sure it’s doing what you want it to do for when you retire. 

In short, putting your pensions together can make managing your money for the future a lot clearer and simpler. However, you should always check to see if you will lose any valuable benefits by transferring your pension .Before you start consolidating your pensions, you should think about your investment choices and any charges you may have to pay. If you use our Find and Combine service, we’ll not only be able to help you trace any lost pensions you may have, we’ll also  show you charges and certain benefits  you may lose by combining your pensions.  

If you’re not sure about consolidating your pensions, we recommend you seek financial advice first. You can also visit our website for a more in-depth guide to pension consolidation.