The Association of British Insurers is stepping up efforts to re-connect consumers with their lost nest eggs by launching a framework to help find “gone-away” customers. With the average Brit moving house 8 times in their life it is very easy for pension and insurance providers to lose contact with customers who do not inform them of their new address.
With the latest government figures estimating 1.6 million pension pots lying unclaimed, to the tune of £400 million, it is important that customers are reunited with the cash they are entitled to, to help fund their retirement. Providers already go to great lengths to track down their lost customers, but the framework will encourage the most effective techniques across the entire sector.
Alongside the framework, Pensions Dashboards will be vital to giving consumers full visibility of every pension pot in their name – making the process of re-connecting with their long-term savings much easier.
This is particularly important in light of the Government’s recent recommendation that insurance and pension products should be moved into the remit of the Dormant Assets Scheme (DAS), which would see assets distributed to good causes, where they are inactive for an extended period of time and cannot be reunited with their owners. The new framework will help firms ensure that they use the most effective techniques for reuniting customers with their pension savings before funds can move into the Dormant Assets Scheme.
The ABI’s Gone-Aways Framework is available online. The 11 principles include:
- Creating a dedicated role or team within organisations, focused on re-engaging with gone-away customers.
- Using credit reference, Electoral Roll and/or DWP data, where available, to aid with locating gone-away customers.
- Using the services of an external tracing agency to screen customers to check whether they have moved without informing their provider.
Alistair Hardie, Chair of the ABI’s Gone-Aways Working Group and Head of Individual and Workplace Products at Standard Life, commented:
“Pension pots and other long-term savings to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds are currently unclaimed, when they could be making a real difference to the lives of countless people who have simply lost touch with their providers. This framework will help providers use best practice to ensure they’re doing everything they can to re-connect customers with their hard-earned savings.”