MovePlanPension change of address when you move house
Nobody notifies your pension providers when you move — not your bank, not HMRC, not each other. Each one needs telling separately, and an old one you've lost track of needs a different fix.
"Pension providers" is one line on most moving checklists, filed next to the bank and the insurer as if it's the same kind of task. It isn't, for two reasons. First, there's no single place to do it — a workplace pension from your current job, one or two from jobs you've left, and maybe a personal pension you started yourself are each a separate provider with their own address on file. Second, unlike the State Pension, which moves with your HMRC record automatically, a workplace or personal pension pot has no connection to HMRC's change-of-address service at all. Update HMRC and every one of these pensions still has your old address.
The current ones: update each provider directly
- 1
Start with your annual statement or online portal
Most providers now let you update your address yourself, through an app or a members' portal — check the login details on your most recent annual statement, which usually name the address to write to as well.
- 2
Do the workplace one through your new employer where that's the trigger
If the move coincides with a new job, your new employer's pension only covers pay from now on — it doesn't touch the old workplace scheme, which still needs telling separately.
- 3
Write to each provider if there's no online option
A short letter works for this — your name, both addresses, the move date, and a reference from your policy number or annual statement if you have one.
If you've already lost track of an old one
A pension from a job you left years ago, with a provider whose name you half-remember, is common enough that gov.uk runs a free service for exactly this: the Pension Tracing Service. Give it the name of the employer or the provider and it gives you their current contact details. It can't tell you whether you have a pension or what it's worth; the provider does that.
| It does | It doesn't |
|---|---|
| Give you the pension scheme's contact details, using the employer's or provider's name | Confirm whether you actually have a pension with them, or tell you what it's worth |
| Cost nothing — use it online at gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details, or phone 0800 731 0175 (free from a landline or a mobile) | Update your address itself — that's a separate step, done with the provider once you've got its details |
It's a directory, not a records office — you still ring or write to the provider yourself once you have its details, the same way as any of the current pensions above. Postal contact for the Pension Tracing Service itself is The Pension Service, Post Handling Site A, Wolverhampton, WV98 1AF, if you'd rather not call.
Where this fits in the move
There's no reason to rush it before moving day — nothing about a pension is tied to your completion date the way insurance or council tax is. The one thing worth doing early, if you're going to do it at all, is the tracing step: working out which old employers had a pension scheme is easier to do from memory now than from a P45 you filed away three moves ago.
The rest of the money-and-insurance group — your bank and building society, your insurer and the full list — is on who to notify when moving house. The State Pension is covered separately, through the same HMRC service that updates your tax record.
MovePlan doesn't have a letter built specifically for a pension provider — there's no way to write one address block that fits every scheme. What it does have is a generic change-of-address letter, meant to be copied once per provider, in the same pack as the bank, insurer and other letters. It's a starting point to fill in and send yourself; MovePlan doesn't contact any pension provider or the Pension Tracing Service on your behalf.
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