How many jobs have you had? Three? Four?
What about addresses? Five? Six?
Well, it’s possible you may have bonus money awaiting your collection, as a result of any or all of the above.
A crazy $18 billion in super is now either lost or unclaimed.
What’s more, new Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data reveals that 23 per cent of Aussies with super have more than one lost or unclaimed account – equivalent to roughly four million people.
The bottom line is that your bottom line could be fatter than you think!
Let’s look at:
1. Whether any missing money could be yours.
2. How you can claim it.
Where could you have lost or (unclaimed) super?
Firstly, lost or unclaimed super is still yours for the claiming … but you have to realise it’s there to reclaim it.
So how on earth might you have misplaced money?
If you’ve ever left a job but ‘left‘ your super fund there, without nominating it at your next job, it’s very possible that old super money has been designated as lost.
Super funds consider an account ‘lost’ if it hasn’t received contributions, or any transfers, in the past five years.
But they also consider a fund lost if you haven’t made any transactions on it and they simply haven’t been able to contact you … and that’s often after only 12 months.
Even just a name change could have cost you a fund or two.
‘Unclaimed’ super is essentially an escalation of ‘lost’ super, where the orphan funds are swept into ATO coffers for ‘babysitting’ … where they earn a paltry interest rate only, rather than investment returns.
So why the fuss if you have multiple funds?
Besides the possibility that you’re making low or no investment returns, there’s another compelling reason you need to act if you’ve lost any super accounts.
Multiple funds are incurring multiple costs … with the money coming straight out of what I call your ‘relax stash’. There are two ways you might be duplicating your costs:
- fees
- insurance.
Fees are often charged at a dollar rate per account. The (editable) assumptions used for this cost on moneysmart.gov.au’s superannuation calculator are a good guide to average cost: it sets the administration fee alone at $74.
Three accounts? That’s three times that amount, thanks.
Then there will usually be an asset management or investment fee on top of that, of typically 1.1 per cent, according to datahouse SuperRatings. (If you’re paying higher investment fees than this, make sure your fund is performing well enough to justify it.)
Insurance is a ‘default’ expense if you’re over 25 and once you have more than $6000 in your super fund.
While insurance in super can be a good thing, it comes straight out of your super balance, too.
And having excess and, in particular, multiple policies doesn’t help you. Insurers may well fight amongst themselves as to who is responsible for your policy/affliction on a claim … which may end up in you receiving no payout at all.
Be aware: super funds will often cancel your insurance on inactive super accounts, considered inactive in this case if they haven’t received contributions for at least 16 months. Funds may also have their own rules that require the cancellation of insurance where super accounts are low.
So, if you don’t have insurance in another fund, or elsewhere, you could even be unintentionally uninsured.
How do you check for lost super?
The ATO has made inroads reuniting lost and unclaimed super with its owners: it has returned nearly $6.4 billion since 2021.
It’s also made it ‘super’ easy to find out if you’re richer than you realise.
The three easy steps are:
- create or log into your myGov account
- go to the ‘super’ tab
- read if you have lost super accounts … simple as that!
The harder part is choosing, if you find accounts you had forgotten about, the right fund to roll them into.
But there is help at hand here, too, via the YourSuper tool, also accessible with personalised super details through the ATO portal on myGov.
This lets you compare the investment performance of up to four funds, so you can compare those you have against those that may be better.
The good news is that super has been so-called ‘stapled’ to your tax file number since 2021. Now, if you change jobs, addresses or your name, funds have a far better shot at getting in touch with you and keeping you updated as to your super’s location and growth.
But if the above fast process uncovers an oversight, you can contact your fund/s though the same ATO tool, and move your new-found money to the best possible place.
It’s worth checking to see if you have any lost super funds you can roll over into your current (or a better) fund.
Choosing a better performing fund, and stopping any fee-paying double-ups, could boost your retirement savings by tens – or hundreds – of thousands of dollars.
Do you think you could have any unclaimed super out there? Were you ever just signed up to an employer’s default fund? Let us know in the comments section below.
Also read: Should we be able to access our super early
Financial disclaimer: The information contained on this web page is of general nature only and has been prepared without taking into consideration your objectives, needs and financial situation. You should check with a financial professional before making any decisions. Any opinions expressed within an article are those of the author and do not specifically reflect the views of Compare Club Australia Pty Ltd.
Article first published on Expert Analysis.
