Personal pensions
Do you handle complaints about personal pensions for a financial adviser or pension provider?
This page will give you an overview of the complaints we deal with and tell you how we approach them.
On this page
Do you have a pensions complaint?
If you’re a consumer, see our guidance for consumers on personal pensions. Or give us a call on 0800 023 4567.
Complaints we deal with
Most of the complaints we get about personal pensions are where the consumer believes you gave them the wrong advice, for example by recommending:
- an unsuitable pension arrangement for their circumstances and objectives
- recommending an unsuitable annuity or income drawdown plan
We also see complaints where the consumer believes the investment funds in their pension don’t match their attitude to risk. And we handle complaints about administration errors in personal pensions, for example:
- delays in income or annuity payments
- transfer or investment delays
- contributions not being allocated correctly
If a complaint doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction, we’ll tell the consumer about other organisations that might be able to help them.
Handling personal pensions complaints before they come to us
Good complaint handling can repair a relationship, help build trust and confidence in financial services, and give customers a better understanding of your financial products.
You should ensure your complaint handling teams fully understand:
- The requirements of the Consumer Duty
- What to send us when we're dealing with a complaint about your firm
Our decisions database holds all the final decisions we’ve published since 1 April 2013. They're anonymised to protect the identity of complainants but are based on real-life complaints, so will give you a good picture of how we resolve disputes.
Our complaints data will give you an idea of the volume of complaints we receive and resolve, and the proportion that we have upheld in consumers’ favour.
How we resolve personal pensions complaints
We only look at complaints you've had an opportunity to look into first. If the consumer is unhappy with your decision, or you don't respond to them within the time limits, they can come to us. We'll look at the facts and evidence from both you and your customer and consider any:
- relevant laws and regulations
- regulators’ rules in place when the event happened
- guidance, standards and codes of practice in place at the time of the event
We follow the FCA’s dispute resolution rules (DISP) and will take into account how you’ve tried to put things right. We’ll also consider whether the sale was by a 'tied' representative of a product provider, or an independent financial adviser.
If we uphold a consumer's complaint, we'll tell you what you need to do to put things right.
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We'll look at the advice you gave the consumer and whether it was suitable for them, taking into account:
- the consumer's personal circumstances and aims
- whether the investments in the pension were a good fit for the consumer's attitude to risk – and capacity to take risk
If we decide the pensions advice you gave the consumer wasn’t suitable, we’ll ask you to put things right. To do this, we’ll consider what their situation would be if you hadn’t given them the wrong advice.
For example, if they’ve suffered financial loss, we might tell you to make a payment into their pension plan to make up the loss. If that’s not possible, we might tell you to make a payment directly to the consumer.
Similarly, if it looks like the investments were unsuitable – and the consumer has less in their pension because of that – we’ll ask you to top it up. If we don’t know the exact investment where the consumer’s pension funds would otherwise have been, we’ll calculate the most likely return. To do this we use various tools, including:
- indices
- fixed-rate bond returns
- the Bank of England base rate
- a combination of all of these
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Where there’ve been administration errors, we’ll look at the individual circumstances and the impact they’ve had.
Errors that cause delays to pension payments
We might ask you to compensate the consumer for being out of pocket, for example, by paying interest on the late payment amounts.
Missing payments
We might ask you to pay the consumer the total sum of the missed payments plus interest to the date of settlement.
We’ll look into whether a failed or late payment caused any other financial losses. And it’s likely we’ll tell you to make a payment for any distress or inconvenience a failed or late payment caused.
Mishandling documents
If your firm has sent documents to the wrong address, or mislaid originals, we might tell you to pay for the distress or inconvenience this caused. Or we’ll suggest that you cover the cost of replacing the originals.
Case studies
Consumer complains investment funds within a personal pension plan represented too high a risk
Pensions
Consumer complains that a business' delay in processing paperwork caused her annuity to start late
Annuities Pensions
Consumer complains about advice to contract out of SERPS
Pensions
Business Support Hub
Businesses and consumer advisers can contact our Business Support Hub on 020 7964 1400 for information on how we might look at a particular complaint, or for guidance on our rules and how we work.
We also work with businesses and other organisations to help prevent complaints.