How to Check How Much Pension You Have (and Where It Is)

To know how much pension you have, you need to answer two separate questions: which bodies hold your savings, and how much has built up in each. Anyone who has changed jobs a few times often finds more than one product, and doesn't always remember where. The good news is that there are official systems, set up on the initiative of and supervised by the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority, that let you find out without hunting for old statements. This guide explains what each service gives you, what it doesn't, and what to check in the results.

01What you are actually trying to find out

Five questions, each answered in a different place. It helps to know what you're looking for up front, because a single total is not enough.

• Where: which bodies hold an account for you, whether a pension fund, a provident fund, a study fund or life insurance with a savings component.
• How much: the balance in each product separately, not only a grand total.
• Whether deposits continue: whether deposits arrive every month, and from which employer.
• What it costs: management fees, on deposits and on balance.
• What cover you have: insurance for death and loss of earning capacity, and whether products duplicate each other.

02The official ways to check

You don't need a private service to get the picture. These are the official sources, from the broadest to the narrowest:

1. 1

   The pension clearing house: the full picture

   The system is connected to insurance companies, pension funds, provident funds and study funds, and was set up on the Authority's initiative and under its supervision. According to its site it shows which bodies and which accounts or policies hold money for you, how much has built up in each, the deposits, the cover for death and disability, and a projection for retirement age. A one-time registration on the site is required. Per the site, registering is free, but information requests carry a fee set by the legislator. See the current price list on the site.

2. 2

   Har HaKesef: where savings are waiting

   A search engine run by the Ministry of Finance and the Authority, for pension savings and life insurance policies. According to the site, entry is through the national authentication. The gov.il service page makes clear that a result shows the possibility that accounts or policies exist, and the decisive information, including balances and rights, sits with the institutions. Use is intended for private purposes, and running a search with another person's details without their permission may be a criminal offence.

3. 3

   Har HaBituach: policies and cover

   A free site of the Authority that gathers insurance information: policies and service letters with insurance companies, including the premium, and an alert on possible duplicate cover. Entry is through the government authentication system. It is for the insurance file, so you look up fund balances in the clearing house and in Har HaKesef.

4. 4

   The managing body: statement and personal area

   The quarterly and annual statement, and the personal area on the body's site or app, show one product in detail. This is where to go deeper once you know where an account exists.

5. 5

   Your payslip: the other side of the deposit

   The payslip shows the employee deduction and the employer contribution. Compare them with the statement or the clearing house. According to the clearing house's site, the information you receive includes the deposits of the last 12 months, and the employer's name.

03How to read what you get

Results usually look like a list of products, each with a few fields. Go through them in order, product by product, not as a single number. A full explanation of every field is in how to read a pension statement. In short:

• Balance and deposits: is there a balance, and do the latest deposits match your payslips.
• Management fees: two rates, on deposits and on balance. To see why the gap between them matters over years, see how fees eat returns.
• Insurance cover: what is covered, to what extent, and what it costs.
• The product itself: if you need the difference between a pension fund, a provident fund and a study fund, there is a guide to pension funds.

04Common findings, and what to check in each

A few things come up again and again. None of them is a recommendation to act. They are questions to look into.

05What Shavve does here

Shavve is a personal-finance app that brings together, read-only, pension funds, provident and study funds and also insurance, including Har HaBituach. For pensions it shows each product's fees against the published market median and against your own cheapest product, and flags a month with no deposit based on the account's own historical rhythm. It does not move money and doesn't replace a licensed adviser, and it doesn't guess numbers: what isn't connected isn't shown. Shavve holds a financial-information-service licence, supervised by the Israeli Securities Authority.

With all your products in one place you can fold them into your net worth picture. And if you're curious how apps connect to bank data, that's explained in open banking, simply.