Yong-Long Lai

Came across these resources when I was looking through my own super… (obviously trying to find if i had any lost super)

Firstly, besides the obvious important point that superannuation is money set aside for our retirement it also the place where people buy their term life insurance ie. life insurance and also total and permanent disabled (TPD) insurance. Here lies one of the problem when you have multiple superannuations… most people’s superannuation will automatically buy a fixed amount of life insurance and TPD. Meaning, if there was a minimum of 100k for life insurance and TPD and you had 5 different superannuation fund then you would have a total of 500K worth of life insurance and TPD… this might sound good, but the problem is you are only topping up one of your superannuation and you might not need all that life insurance and TPD. (insurance cost money! i.e. your superannuation is being eaten away by the insurance fee through time)

The other problem is just simply the fee these superannuation fund charge everybody… they usually take a % of your portfolio value with a minimum amount (which ever is greater) so having 5 superannuation fund with $10,000 in them is definitely not smart. So it’s obviously something useful if you can find all your lost super and pool it into your favourite fund.
If you wish to track down your super contributions made by a past employer, you can register with the Lost Superannuation Register on the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Website. There is no cost through this method and it only requires you to fill in a form and send to the ATO. Visit the super section of the ATO website.

There’s another external group that do the searching for you, I personally don’t think this is necessary unless you’ve had lots of jobs in the pass and have no idea where all your super money has gone… If this sounds like you then you might want to check out Find my super. Either that or you’re feeling lazy, I’m not sure how much they charge, but i’m guessing its something…

Anyways, good luck! I’ve noticed that my superannuation has been losing about 5-10% every year for the past 5 years (after deducting my contributions) even though for the early period, the stock market was positive… I suspect this was eaten up all in fees and insurance cost… (I don’t have much money in my super at the moment, but it makes me stop to think what’s the purpose of this if the fees are so high! )

Technorati Tags: Lost Super, Superannuation