How PensionHunter's Research Technology Searches for Forgotten Pensions, A Behind the Scenes Look

When you start a pension search with PensionHunter, you are not placing a request that sits in someone's inbox for weeks. Our professional research team begins working across every country you have ever worked in. We search, we identify, we report, you decide. Here is how the current research model actually works.

The Workforce Graph, How Cases Are Coordinated

Your employment history is mapped into a workforce graph: every employer, every country, every relevant date. The graph determines which public registers, scheme indexes and employer histories are worth querying, and in what order. If an early signal points to a likely match in one country, the graph re-prioritises so verification continues in parallel with the wider search.

Public Register Query, Searching the Official Sources

For each country in scope we query the relevant public registers and scheme indexes, for example the UK Pension Tracing Service index, the ATO lost super register in Australia, and country-equivalent sources elsewhere. The Netherlands is a known edge case: most expats cannot use Mijnpensioenoverzicht because DigiD requires a Dutch BSN and address, so Dutch entitlements are pursued under Information Request Authority (IRA) on Enhanced Pension Identification Report cases rather than via online portals.

Employer Research, Following the Corporate Trail

Every employer you list is researched to understand what happened to it. Name changes, mergers, acquisitions, administration, all of it matters, because when a company changes hands the pension scheme often moves with it. Companies House, ASIC, KVK and equivalent registries are checked to connect "the employer you remember" to "the provider that may now hold the scheme".

Document & Tool Layer, Reading What We Find

Filings, scheme booklets, public statements and any documents you upload to your case are parsed and cross-referenced with register results. When independent sources agree, confidence in a candidate entitlement increases and it is recorded in your report with the evidence behind it.

Two Different Reports, One Research Engine

It matters which tier you are on:

- Country Pension Identification Report ($99) is identification-only. We use the engine above to identify likely entitlements and produce a report. Nothing is sent to providers as part of a Pension Identification Report. Typical turnaround: 24 to 48 hours. - Enhanced Pension Identification Report ($499) and Global Pension Identification Report ($799) add manual research plus a complete information request for every fund we identify, written and ready to send, drawing on your signed Information Request Authority (IRA). You send the requests, and we answer your questions about whatever comes back, on your workplace and state pension alike, for as long as your case is open. Typical turnaround: within five working days of your intake form for Search and within ten working days of your intake form for Global.

In every case the decision about what to do with anything identified, transfer, consolidate, draw, leave in place, stays entirely with you and your regulated adviser. PensionHunter does not give financial advice.

Your Report

Findings are compiled into your case report: registers queried, employers researched, candidate entitlements with the evidence behind each one, and (on Search/Global) the providers we have contacted under IRA and what they have said. Your case dashboard shows status as it progresses.

Why This Is Faster Than Traditional Tracing

Traditional tracing typically works one employer at a time, sequentially, by a single human. Our model parallelises register queries and employer research across every country in scope from the moment your case is opened, with humans reviewing and signing off the output.

Honest Limits

No service can guarantee that every entitlement in every jurisdiction will be found, some schemes are not discoverable from outside, and some jurisdictions restrict third-party enquiries. If your Pension Identification Report delivers nothing material, your Pension Identification Report fee is refunded in full.

Ready to see it in action? Check your pension probability, free. Or [register free](/register).

*This article is for informational purposes only. PensionHunter is a research and administrative assistance service. Not regulated by the FCA.*

At PensionHunter, building the World's Trusted Pension Identification Platform, we help people across 41 countries find pension records they had forgotten about.