There's '£89 billion' waiting to be returned to the people who own it – could you be one of them?

A campaign aims to reunite £3bn worth of forgotten shares, policies and pensions with their owners, says Paul Lewis.

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Published: June 11, 2026 at 3:12 PM

There is £89 billion waiting to be returned to the estimated 28 million people who own it. That is the extraordinary claim of Gretel – a firm that reunites people with money they have forgotten about or, in some cases, never knew about. This is their own money and it can be in pensions, life insurance, bank accounts, child trust funds, shares, or other investments. Some of it could be yours!

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Its Billions 4 Millions Campaign set a target to recover £1 billion in 2026. But it returned more than £700 million by the end of March and increased its target to £3 billion for the year – which it now hopes to exceed. The largest amount recovered was £249,000 in a lost investment account for someone in their sixties.

Forgotten pensions account for the biggest share of the missing money. Since 2012, people in work have been automatically enrolled in a pension scheme and from 2018 that has applied to everyone in work who earns over £10,000 a year. These pension pots do not follow from job to job, and people can have a dozen or more of them.

The pensions industry says there is £31 billion in lost pensions, but Gretel boss Duncan Stevens told me he estimates the missing money is more than £64 billion.

Other lost money includes shares – some dating back to the heady days of privatisation in the 1970s and 80s – which individuals or their heirs have either forgotten or don’t know how to find. Then there are the life insurance policies, many of which are never claimed after a death.

Gretel can track down lost money from all these sources from the companies in its scheme, and Stevens says the number of firms registered with Gretel is “growing – and rapidly”. That is partly because it helps fulfil their consumer duty mandated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The fees from firms allow Gretel to make no charge to individuals and it takes no fee from any money that’s recovered.

Individuals can register simply with their name, date of birth and current address. Gretel finds previous addresses from credit records, asks if they are correct, and customers can add any other past addresses. Once signed up, Gretel will search those details every fortnight as more records are taken on.

For more information, go to the website gretel.co.uk.

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QUESTIONS? Send any questions to Paul.Lewis@radiotimes.com. Paul cannot answer you personally, but will reflect them in his column.

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