One in four people think they have lost access to a pension, new research by Royal London Ireland has found. 

Since 1st January this year, most workers have been automatically enrolled in a workplace pension under new auto-enrolment rules. 

However, it appears that a significant number of people who are signed up to a workplace pension go on to forget the details they need to log in and access it. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, Fairstone Ireland Head of Investments & Pensions Bernard Walsh said modern life often makes it hard to keep track of account details. 

“People move house a bit more nowadays or people might change apartments,” he explained. 

“They might change their email address; one of the things that people do is they use their old work email addresses where they can be contacted at - so, they lose track. 

“They might think this is a fairly modest amount of money, they mightn't be aware just how significant it can be over time. 

“So yes, it is quite a big problem - and for different age groups as well.” 

Mr Walsh continued that losing access to a pension is a “bigger issue definitely” for younger people who are less interested in their retirement than older workers. 

“The good thing is, just because you've lost sight of it doesn't mean you've lost it,” he said. 

“You've probably lost decision-making power because you're not doing anything about it.

“In Fairstone, what we do is we get what's called a letter of authority from people and that allows us to go out and we go to all of the life companies, all the providers, and we find it out for people and we bring it all together and show them in one place.

“We get their PPS number, we get their date of birth and we get their authority to do this on their behalf and then that allows us to pull it all together and it's a good exercise for people to do.” 

For those who think they have lost access to a workplace pension, Mr Walsh suggested it is always worth investigating, even if he conceded that most people view pension as a subject that is “drowning in complexity”. 

“It's your money and believe it or not, over time, even if it was a pot of money of €5,000, €6,000, €10 years ago, markets would be doing really well,” he said. 

Main image: Hands of an elderly pensioner holding leather wallet. Picture by: Alamy.com.