The importance of keeping your details up to date

Once you’ve started contributing to your pension, it can be easy to let things tick over in the background, especially if retirement is a while off for you. But while workplace pensions are designed to make investing in your future as straightforward as possible, it’s important to check-in every once in a while, and make sure everything is as it should be – otherwise you could risk missing out.

Changing jobs? Make sure you get your emails, not your old employer.

When you join a new pension scheme you may find it makes most sense to use your work email address. In fact, this is probably the email address your employer used to send you details of your workplace pension in the first place! While you’re still working for your employer, it might be more convenient for you to continue using your work email address, so any updates you might receive get sent straight to your work inbox.

However, if you’re leaving your employer, either for a new job or to step back from work, it’s important to update your email address to a personal one. If you don’t do this, any important communications about your pension will be sent to your old work email address – which means you might miss out on important updates. Plus, without the occasional update from your pension provider, it can be easy to lose track of your old pensions, especially as the months and years go by. Lost pensions can get harder to track down the older they are, especially if any of your old employers close, or if your old pension providers are bought out by other firms. This could result in more admin at your end when it comes to your retirement planning, or even in you missing out on valuable income when you come to retire.

Is your target retirement age still right for you?

Depending on your pension provider, one of the first things you might do when enrolling into your pension is set your target retirement age. This target age is used as a guide to help you see if your retirement goals are on track, but it can also have an impact on how your pension is invested. For example, TPT’s default ‘Target Date Fund’ makes changes to how your funds are invested based upon how close you are to reaching your target retirement age. While you are further away from this date, your investments will be in ‘riskier’ funds, to give them a greater chance to grow but as you get closer to the date, your investments are moved to ‘safer’ funds to help protect them from market volatility as you approach your retirement. If your retirement plans change, it’s important to update your target retirement age to reflect this as it can have a very real impact upon your pension investments.

Moving house? Make sure you update your address.

A simple one but an important one. If you’re moving home, make sure you update your postal address. More and more of our transactions are handled online, but you may well need forms and documents sent to you by post – especially as you approach retirement. It’s also worth making sure your phone number is up to date too.

Your life and circumstances may have changed a lot since you joined your pension. Are your beneficiaries up to date?

A lot might have changed since you joined your pension, especially if it was a while ago. You may have got married, divorced, had children or undergone any number of major changes to your personal life. 

You are able to select a beneficiary to leave your pension to if the worst should happen – but who you want this to be might change over the course of your life. By keeping your beneficiaries up to date, you can help ensure that your pension goes to the right people if it needs to.

Need to make a change? No problem!

With TPT, it’s easy to review your pension details and make sure they are all up to date. Simply log in to your online account to check and make any changes you need to.  Alternatively, you can click here to get in touch.