Any more examples of free cash lying in forgotten accounts, or free cash deals from banks?

There’s over £1 billion in unclaimed ‘free cash’ sitting in forgotten bank accounts via the Dormant Assets Scheme. If you’ve moved house, changed your name, or simply stopped using an old account, you might not even realise money is still there.

I know of a case where a major high street bank nearly moved over £60,000 of business money into the scheme. The bank did send a letter, but that could easily have been overlooked. The business replied — but the ‘wrong’ director signed, and the bank failed to explain that the instruction had to be resent. The account was then closed without warning or any further contact. It took weeks of calls, letters, emails, and branch visits to recover the funds.

If this can happen to a well-run business, it can happen to anyone. Check your old accounts and paperwork — with over £1bn lying dormant, your money might be waiting for you.

A few years ago during a client review one of our advisers was asked to see if he had a pension with an employer he worked at during the 90s for a few years. He wasn’t sure whether he even had a pension, so the adviser also wanted to expecting the value to be much. On receipt of the information, the cash transfer value was about £150,000. It’s one of the best conversations that adviser has ever had with his client, and the sum was totally life changing for him, and his disabled wife, in retirement. Moral of the story; always get your adviser to check your old employers to confirm if you had a pension.

There are billions of pounds of free cash going unclaimed.

Missing pension pots: £31.1bn is sitting around in lost pension pots, according to Pensions U.K. (formerly the PLSA), with the average missing pot worth £9,470. It’s worth using a pension tracing service like Gretel to check if you’ve lost any cash - you only need your name and address, but any info about your pension providers like their name or a customer number will speed things up.

Unclaimed benefits: Around £23bn in benefits goes unclaimed every year, according to Policy in Practice. Use a benefits calculator to check if you could be due money without realising it.

Tax-free childcare: Tens of thousands of families aren’t claiming tax-free childcare, which could save them up to £2,000 a year on childcare costs. All working parents with children who are 11 or under can apply.