Additional voluntary contribution schemes

One way to grow your retirement pot is to use an 'additional voluntary contribution (AVC) scheme' connected to your employer’s pension scheme. 

Or you might have taken out a 'free-standing additional voluntary contribution' (FSAVC) scheme with a pension company. This is separate to your employer’s scheme.

We can look at some of the complaints people make about these.

You'll find everything you need to know about AVC and FSAVC schemes on the MoneyHelper website.

You may have followed pensions advice to decide whether AVCs or FSAVCs were right for you and now feel that advice was unsuitable, for example, because you:

• took out an FSAVC instead of joining the ‘in-house’ AVC scheme offered by your employer, which may have matched your own contributions or had lower charges than the FSAVC
• invested in the employer’s money purchase AVC or an FSAVC instead of buying added years in the final salary scheme

If you're unhappy about advice you've received – or the way your adviser or pension provider managed your additional voluntary contribution – you may wish to make a complaint.

Our service is free and easy to use. 

1. Before bringing your complaint to us, you should make a formal complaint to the company involved.
2. If they don't send you a final response letter within eight weeks – or you're unhappy with their response – you can complain to an ombudsman.
3. Our complaint checker will tell you more about some of the things we need to know upfront and help you make sure you’re ready to send us your complaint.
4. Fill in our online complaint form. Your case will be assigned to a case handler who will get in touch when they start to investigate.
5. To help us consider a complaint fairly, we may ask you to provide more information to help us understand what happened.

Use our complaint checker

We’ll make our decision about what happened using evidence from you, the financial business and any relevant third parties. To reach a decision, we'll also consider: 

• the relevant law
• any regulations that applied at the time
• good industry practice and relevant regulatory guidance

We'll tell you whether we believe you've been treated unfairly or not. If we don't uphold your complaint, we'll tell you why and explain how we reached our decision.

If we think you've lost money – or may lose retirement income – because you received the wrong pensions advice, we'll tell the financial adviser or pensions provider to put things right.

We may also tell them to pay you compensation for any distress or inconvenience you have suffered.

Find out more about the Pensions Ombudsman on their website

For details on where to complain about different types of pension problem, see the MoneyHelper website.

The Department of Work and Pensions offers more information about retirement planning.