YOU'VE probably heard by now that superannuation funds had a very bad year. With all bar one reporting negative returns, you might be wondering what on earth your superannuation fund has been doing - particularly since surveys done in June showed that the majority of Australians expected their balance to be positive, with 20 per cent expecting it to be much higher!

Whether or not you decide to switch superannuation funds - and you probably shouldn't unless your fund is way down in the tables - there's one thing you should be doing first: finding your lost super.

You may have read the stories about the tremendous fees that caretakers of your lost super are charging but there's another reason to find it - their returns are probably going to be much lower than all other super funds.

If you lose touch with your superannuation - this is legally defined as your super fund having mail returned from an old address or no contributions made for two years - it is allowed to roll your money into an eligible rollover fund (ERF). If you have a small balance of less than $1000 and leave your job without telling your fund what you want them to do with your money, it can also end up in an ERF.

There are 15 major ERFs looking after more than $5.6 billion in 5.1 million accounts in Australia. That's a lot of lost money. It also doesn't include the $6 billion sitting in super that can't find a home and has not yet been sent to an ERF. Most funds have already reported their annual results but ERFs won't report theirs until the legal deadline - October.

Jeff Bresnahan, managing director and founder of SuperRatings, says ERF returns are likely to be extremely mixed because of the different places they invest your money.

At least one ERF should be in positive territory. The AMP Eligible Rollover Fund is a capital guaranteed fund, which means at least your initial balance won't be eroded. However it charges management fees of more than 2 per cent, which are way more than most superannuation funds.

The majority of ERF monies are in five funds. The AMP ERF has close to 25 per cent, the Super Trace Eligible Rollover Fund has 27 per cent, Australian Eligible Rollover Fund has 20 per cent, AUSfund has 11 per cent and the National Preservation Trust has 7 per cent.

Some of these are going to be in very red territory with more than one likely to deliver double-digit negative returns, according to Bresnahan.

Any returns will be further eroded by fees, the average of which is 2.97 per cent, but some charge as much as 5 per cent.

If you think you have some lost super out there, you can try and track it down via the Australian Taxation Office's SuperSeeker, which provides an online, phone and letter service for finding that missing cash.

You might think it's money not worth worrying about but the average account balance in an ERF is nearly $1100. You could get a return flight to Bali or Fiji for that, so it's definitely worth looking for.