Friends life

kingrulzuk

I pot out from work place pension last year and this year I was opt in and was told that if I want to opt out I need to phone friends life.
I called their phone number 6 times since last week and been waiting for them to answer up to 20 mins and no one answers.
Sick of waiting on the phone now have opted out online which I’m not sure if it worked or not.
But is this normal with friends life?

xylophone

Why have you opted out?

JoeCrystal

Was wondering the same thing. Bit like giving up free money, from your employer.

kingrulzuk

You are right its free money, employer took out £7 last month from my pay and they will top up with another £7. But I got told that friends life fee is from £3 to £7 a month.

So is it worth it?
Also I don’t trust the government as they can move the goal post anytime?
How safe is friendslife?

Linton

You would expect the return from the investments to be significantly more than the fees. Fees are charged as a % of the total investment and are not directly connected with contributions so its meaningless to compare fees with contributions especially as it appears your contributions are very low.

Friends Life are owned by Aviva, one of the biggest insurance companies in the country. Even if they went bust your pension wouldnt be affected, the pension would simply be taken on by some other company.

dunstonh

But is this normal with friends life?

At the moment, yes. The Friend prov side is a little better than the AXA Sun life side but both have been suffering issues.

You are right its free money, employer took out £7 last month from my pay and they will top up with another £7. But I got told that friends life fee is from £3 to £7 a month.

That is not possible. Fees are capped at 0.75% of the fund value. So, they are taking less than 1p a month on £14.

Also I don’t trust the government as they can move the goal post anytime?

You dont invest with the Government.

How safe is friendslife?

100% safe. You get full FSCS protection.

kingrulzuk

Thank you all

wakeupalarm

dunstonh wrote: »

At the moment, yes. The Friend prov side is a little better than the AXA Sun life side but both have been suffering issues.

Do you know what these issues are? Are they in financial trouble?

I invested into my pension in the middle of April. My investment has disappeared.

They claimed they had received it but never credited it to my account and said that they had a 4 week backlog. Since then they have refused to answer any questions. I have filed a complaint but again they are not responding to any queries in writing.

If they are a reputable company why has my money disappeared and why are they refusing to answer any questions? I am concerned they have lost my money.

dunstonh

Do you know what these issues are?

Systems issues. Friends Prov bought the old AXA Sun Life book. Then just as it was starting to look at systems merging and combining the books, along came Aviva and bought Friends. So, you have many systems which are old and incompatible with each other with development to merge these things.

Are they in financial trouble?

Not at all. Aviva are financially strong.

I invested into my pension in the middle of April. My investment has disappeared.

I havent been able to get values on the AXA Sun Life side since around Jan/Feb. They ran some fixes around April which fixed some versions and the Friends Prov plans but not the AXA plans. They cant find a fix at present. This does not mean the investment is gone. Their systems are showing everything fine. Its the web interface and the integration with back office systems with IFAs etc that are suffering reporting issues.

The products and your money are safe but the administration and website/technology side is woeful.

Is yours an old Friends Prov or an AXA sun life plan?

You could put a complaint to Aviva and tell them that whilst you know they are not responsible, you have tried complaining to Friends Life who have not acknowledged your complaint. Indeed, the Aviva representative on this site may pick this up shortly for you. They can liaise with Friends and get it sorted.

agarnett

Aviva may be big but they are dire. It's frankly a very questionable name to call what is left of Norwich Union, Commercial Union and General Accident. Ask yourslf why they dropped those respected names. Was it because they have no continuing requirement of the need to be respected? Is it a name that all but the pros might quickly forget?

You will never obtain the original expectation from any long term contract with them such as the decades which are obviously in mind for a pension plan that you will pay into for years. I know AXA, I know Friends Life, and I know Aviva. I have business with them. I find them as crooked as a nine bob note. They dumped my complaints as too hot to handle - far too like having to have all their drains up for their liking. They hate people they can't confuse. They like hungry IFAs who do their bidding for them.

At the point of the Aviva Friends merger or takeover or call it what you will, Friends actually owned and brought with them one of the country's biggest so called "I"FA distribution networks (where the "I" is supposed to mean Independent despite the existence of the network upon which they relied heavily). It's in all sorts of trouble - simply Google Sesame Friends Aviva.

By the way, at the point the two companies came together 13 April 2015 I recall (yes, stright off the top of my head - that's how much pain these people cause me), Aviva had told market commentators that they confidently expected to have systems merged inside 9 months. Who were they trying to kid? Oh yeah - market commentators ! Dunstonh makes it sund like they had little time to deal with systems mergers between Friends Provident and AXA. Total BS. The Friends "legacy" customer portals (legacy often seems to be what DH likes to call business he'd rather forget) have all been deliberately dire and most definitely undeveloped for over a decade. They're a disgrace to the pensions industry, and Aviva themselves aren't any better now they are one and the same with almost no walls between them. Avivas CEO came from Friends.

Then there's the French legal case which could sink a battleship whether its name was Aviva or The Eiffel Tower. A French company Aviva own sold investment products in the 1980s which effectively enabled policyholders to choose which stocks to buy at yesterday's prices - genuine crystal balls!

Google simply this: France Legal Case and the word 'Aviva' might be automatically and helpfully prefixed by Google to your search - it is perhaps the most famous legal case in France, at least amongst English speakers who have previously Googled an interest in it, who of course make up most of Aviva's concerned shareholders!

So stay away unless you want a policy period full of angst without ever understanding whether you got what you were supposed to or whether it was rigged against you several times, especially if your IFA gives you the sort of unconditional groundless disgraceful guarantee that seems to have been suggested to you in this short thread. Of , if you are a sophisticated investor, you may well be safe enough if you are sure you have a sufficient personal supply of salt to take in pinches with what you are told by the pros

kingrulzuk

Im glad i have Opt out.
Someone from work said to me UK people only care about today and not what will happen in years time so they will vote to stay in EU, so why do we care about pension?