Work pension advice

sultan123

dunstonh said:

The numerous reviews across many sites all say sw are not great whether thats performance or customer service.

And which SW contracts are they referring to?  Black Horse Life, TSB Life, legacy SW, modern SW, workplace SW, SW platform......

SW have many funds. They also have a whole of market platform.   Let's just say you were on the whole of market platform, you would effectively be saying every fund available is not great.

The movement to other providers was suggested by other posters

And do those people know what they are talking about or is it a case of the blind leading the blind?

How can so many user review sites have such bad reviews though? It is the first time I am seeing such awful reviews across the board

Grumpy_chap

sultan123 said:

No I am referring to my other thread where it was advised. I then adapted my opening post here

Maybe it would be worth asking a Forum Team Member to merge the two threads.

Linton

sultan123 said:

dunstonh said:

The numerous reviews across many sites all say sw are not great whether thats performance or customer service.

And which SW contracts are they referring to?  Black Horse Life, TSB Life, legacy SW, modern SW, workplace SW, SW platform......

SW have many funds. They also have a whole of market platform.   Let's just say you were on the whole of market platform, you would effectively be saying every fund available is not great.

The movement to other providers was suggested by other posters

And do those people know what they are talking about or is it a case of the blind leading the blind?

How can so many user review sites have such bad reviews though? It is the first time I am seeing such awful reviews across the board

1) SW/Lloyds have lots of customers
2) Customers are much more likely to report a bad experience than a good one.
3) With a business like a pension company dealing with people's money the service is expected to be perfect.  Anything less than this is a problem. It is hard to see what an unusually good experience worth reporting from SW or any other pension company would be.

dunstonh

How can so many user review sites have such bad reviews though?

1 - SW do not ask people to give them reviews at purchase, like some companies do.  So, that means they pretty much only get negative reviews as that is usually the time most people would make a review.  
2 - When you read some of the reviews, the problems are not with SW, but the understanding of the individual.  i.e. expecting the pension to do something introduced in 2016 despite them buying it in the 1980s.
3 - Short term issues.  SW have gone through some pain introducing new systems for a lot of their contracts (but not all of them).  Not everything went to plan and servicing delays came in.   It is frustrating but its something most providers will suffer at one time or another.  Even those that are best rated for periods.
4 - 2022 was a negative period for investments.   So, clueless people blame the provider.  We see it in this section frequently.  They dont understand the provider is just an administrator or that negative years are inevitable
5 - Lloyds starved SW of funds for many years and the SW product range became a bit dated and poor quality compared to others.  In recent times, they have effectively re-entered the market with a workplace proposition that is simple and they have launched a whole of market platform.    

When paying into a pension via payroll, you are not going to need to discuss anything with the provider until close to retirement.   So, short term issues shouldn't be a concern.    The focus should be on suitability.

 It is the first time I am seeing such awful reviews across the board

It isn't the first time.   Most suffer them periodically.  Older companies with lots of legacy issues (i.e 1960s,70s, 80s etc products where people expect modern thing) usually suffer more.  But with an auto-enrolment scheme, you are not affected by those legacy issues. 

wjr4

I’ve never had an issue with Scottish Widows. 

sultan123

See this for example which is not trust pilot
https://www.reviews.io/company-reviews/store/scottishwidows

Bimbly

Paying into your workplace pension is the simplest method and an excellent, tax-efficient way to save for retirement. If they offer salary sacrifice, as you suggest, then that only makes the workplace pension more attractive.

Scottish Widows are fine. Even if their customer service is not as good as other places, your money will be invested the same. The potential for a bit more hassle at retirement is probably worth it compared to a definite lot more hassle now. 

Take a look at what investment options your workplace pension offers and make an informed choice. Unless you absolutely object to what's on offer, I can't see that much can be gained by going elsewhere.

Sarahspangles

sultan123 said:

Looking for some advice. An offer for a role has been made where the base salary is £93000 + £1200 general allowance and a £6000 car allowance. There is bonus too which is 18%.

However, my challenge is as that takes me over the 100k threshold I will need to do salary sacrifice of both base salary and some part of bonus into work place pension. The provider of the pension is scottish widows though and reviews have been very bad on trustpilot etc.

Even though the offer is appealing, I feel a lot of money would be wasted through the pension provider potentially going of the reviews. Also thought of SIPP but again that would surely not work here in order to save on 60% tax.

Can I move funds to another provider every few months? Will there be a charge?

How the offered funds perform is more important than customer reviews about service. You can use Trustnet to compare how the SW funds perform against their class.

I had a SW workplace pension for a couple of years and the only time I needed to interact (with their website) was choosing the funds I wanted, and then later on clicking some buttons when I wanted to move the pot into the next employer’s workplace pension. The L&G website was much easier to use than SW’s which at the time was frankly terrible, but I don’t actually think the L&G funds performed as well as SWs. This possibly agrees https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2019/09/11/best-and-worst-workplace-pension-schemes-named/ and I left L&G because I wasn’t happy with their management of my personal data.

Have you asked the prospective employer if they would salsac into another scheme? Or I assume you can salsac enough to be an HRT taxpayer and then set up a SIPP and self-manage the rest of your investment bring in the SW pot later.

dunstonh

sultan123 said:

See this for example which is not trust pilot
https://www.reviews.io/company-reviews/store/scottishwidows

First one is a 1 star and is moaning that they keep sending forms.   She wants to update trustees and beneficiaries on the policy. So, what forms are what is required.   How does that justify a 1 star review?

Second one is about their telephone lines a month ago. That was in the period when they have issues with their telephone system.  I got through last week to request something with no delay.  The stuff I requested was received within 2 days.   So, relying on a month old review during a known issue is unreliable (and it appears the person rang the wrong number on that review)

third one indicates an issue but also potentially an unrealistic expectation about getting pensions cashed in

fourth one is moaning about refusing to combine pensions or allow drawdown.   That is not a valid complaint

fifth one doesnt give any information whatsoever and it could be a problem at SW or it could be an unrealistic expectation.

sixth one is moaning about SW not paying out on an policy where the person lied on it.

seventh one is moaning about an old Black Horse Life policy and the process to draw money.  Again, it appears to be an unrealistic expectation (e.g. moaning about bank statement validation when its normal to only accept proper bank statements which the review did not supply)

They are dealing with tens of thousands of people a day at their call centre and they get a handful of bad reviews on a site and a number of those reviews could easily be poor expectation or lack of understanding by the reviewer.

Albermarle

Grumpy_chap said:

sultan123 said:

No I am referring to my other thread where it was advised. I then adapted my opening post here

Maybe it would be worth asking a Forum Team Member to merge the two threads.

Also maybe worth reading some of the OP's past threads. There are some 'similar themes' ........