£2.5bn in lost products returned to customers

The financial services industry has successfully reunited more than £2.5bn in lost assets with their owners through a coordinated campaign, which now aims to recover a total of £5bn by the end of the year. Launched in January by Gretel with a target of £1bn, the initiative has expanded its ambition as firms involved—including Aviva, Standard Life, Foresters Financial, and J.P. Morgan—continue to sign up throughout the year. This effort targets forgotten pensions, investments, savings, and protection policies that customers have abandoned or lost track of.

Analysis of the results reveals that the average value recovered per successful reconnection is £31,647. The largest single product identified was a protection policy with more than £3.2m of cover. This data challenges the assumption that these lost assets are merely small balances in old accounts.

Pensions accounted for roughly 80% of customers successfully reconnected but only around 38% of the total reported value. In contrast, insurance and protection represented only 12% of reconnections but approximately 60% of the total value, with an average reported value of £157,754. The remaining 8% of successful reconnections were investments and child trust funds (CTFs), which made up around 2% of the total reported value.

Gretel founder Duncan Stevens noted that the campaign highlights the potential scale of unclaimed assets. “If a relatively small group of firms can reconnect people with £2.5bn in six months, it raises a fascinating question about the true scale of the opportunity across the industry,” he said. “With broader participation, could £7bn be reunited, £10bn or perhaps even more? The difference that could make to people across the country is enormous.”

The financial impact of these recoveries is substantial, particularly for those who may have moved homes or changed jobs without updating their records. Tony Carnell, the customer reconnection manager at Aviva, explained the personal side of these transactions. “Behind every reconnection is a person who may have moved home, changed jobs and forgotten their pension or simply lost track of the paperwork that supports an important part of their financial future,” Carnell said. “Reaching £2.5bn in reconnection value in just six months demonstrates the value of industry collaboration.”

While the headline figures are impressive, the distribution of asset types suggests that high-value protection policies are often the most significant component of these forgotten portfolios. The concentration of value in protection products—where fewer customers are reconnected but the average value is far higher—points to a specific risk for policyholders who may have lost contact with their insurers. It is reasonable to expect that as more firms join the initiative, the focus will likely shift toward identifying these high-value policies, potentially skewing the average recovery figures further upward.