Many of us contribute towards a pension fund… and either forget about it, or perhaps never realise they were making contributions in the first place.

Now, research from Aviva has revealed the extent to which pension policies are being forgotten.

A survey of almost ten thousand people who hold a pension has revealed that just under one in eight (13%) admitted they have at least one pension that they had forgotten about. This is equal to more than 2.5 million pension policies.

Among those with a forgotten pension, the majority believe they have misplaced one pot (77%), although 17% think they have forgotten about two and 6% have forgotten three or more.

According to Government figures, there is an estimated £400m in unclaimed pension savings. At the same time, almost three in five (59%) UK adults are worried about not having enough money to last them in retirement.

Although tracking down a lost pension can provide a valuable boost to retirement income, those who delay could receive a smaller amount than expected. Forgotten pensions may have been subject to charges and not invested in the best way suited to the policyholder, making it worth less than it would have been if it was actively managed.  

Earlier research by Aviva shows that comes more than a quarter of savers (28%) admitted to never reviewing their retirement savings, while almost a fifth (19%) of those with a pension said they review it less than once every five years.

Andy Curran, Managing Director, Corporate and Business Solutions at Aviva, said: “It’s unsurprising that so many people have pensions they have forgotten about.

“(But) people need to be aware of the potential risks of having a number of different pension pots with small amounts of money in each. It’s likely that there will still be charges taken out of those pots for their management and administration and that can have implications if you are no longer contributing into them.”

Essential to everyone planning their future will be a detailed knowledge of just how much they need to fund their retirement – and for how long they will need to work. The answer is now available through a unique online retirement planning dashboard www.retireeasy.co.uk which allows you to feed in your income, outgoings and savings and map out a host of different future scenarios. You can try out the basic version for free. 

RetireEasy subscribers can keep a careful watch on the performance of their savings and investments by using LifePlan Premium, which provides daily live feeds for shares and funds values, via Morningstar.  

This level of data can help you make informed and timely decisions about whether to make changes to your investment portfolio.