New app allows you to understand and analyse your pensions

Up to 11 pensions to keep track of

Age-wage to find and track lost pensions

People struggle to keep track of their pensions – 3 out of 5 people don’t know what they have. On average, a working adult in the UK may have 11 different jobs during his or her working life. That means up to 11 different pension pots and the State Pension. Names of pension providers have changed over the years as organisations consolidate, so keeping track of pensions you’ve accumulated over time can be challenging.

A holistic view is hard to achieve, even with the help of a financial adviser – and perhaps that’s why it is estimated that £400m of pensions are unclaimed.

The DWP plans to launch a ‘pensions dashboard’ this year. The pensions dashboard will hold all your pension information in one place at the click of a button, giving you an instant overview of your financial preparation for retirement.

New consumer app breaks new ground

To compliment the pensions dashboard concept, the new AgeWage app is designed to solve three problems for consumers, which create the acronym AGE. The app is being launched by Age Wage and its CEO, Henry Tapper, appears on episode 011 of The Retirement Café Podcast, which you can listen to here:

Assistance: Helping you assess the pension pots you have. This includes looking at the contributions that have been made, the costs involved and the benefits you’re projected to receive. Those figures are then compared to the industry average, giving you a score between 0 and 100, to indicate whether you’re getting value for money. This provides an understanding of your pension plans.
Guidance: Helping you work out what you could do with each of your pensions to provide you with the income needed in retirement. This includes investment recommendations and which pots to consolidate and retain.
Equip: Making sure you have the right pension plan for your needs. This means making the guidance a reality.

Help for the 94% who don’t get financial advice

AgeWage is not designed to replace personal financial planning advice that you get by engaging a financial planner. With only 6% of people getting advice currently, many people need something more than they currently have. AgeWage wants you to know about the money you’ve paid for retirement. This means knowing how much you’ve saved, how much your investments have grown and knowing what you’ve paid for that investment growth.

The company is currently raising funds to support the launch of the service, which is expected to be funded by pension and insurance companies, as opposed to by consumers. The app and all services on the app will not cost you any more than if you sourced the information directly from your pension providers. In practical terms, the service should be free.

AgeWage should be available for some of the major pension providers from April 2019.