Phoenix Life Stopped Paying Monthly Pension

PaulandLucy

Hi, my partner's father is 86 years old and currently lives in the Dordogne in France. He receives a monthly pension of £800 from Phoenix Life on the 27th of each month. The last payment they made to him was 27th January and they have failed to pay on the 27th February and 27th March. He barely has enough money to pay his bills with his pension and has recently been hospitalised with flu and a shoulder problem after a fall and just starting to bounce back and having to deal with Phoenix Life to chase the missing payments. He has spoken to multiple people on the call desk over the last few weeks and keeps being fobbed off telling him he will receive it shortly. He has threatened to make a complaint, contact press and a solicitor but at his age he doesn't need the stress of any of that living overseas 

Can anybody suggest a best way to quickly resolve this, get his payments restarted and claim any compensation that is due for this MASSIVE inconvenience and stress. Thanks. Paul

TadleyBaggie

Are you certain that is pension isn't a fixed term annuity?

MattMattMattUK

PaulandLucy said:

Hi, my partner's father is 86 years old and currently lives in the Dordogne in France. He receives a monthly pension of £800 from Phoenix Life on the 27th of each month. The last payment they made to him was 27th January and they have failed to pay on the 27th February and 27th March. He barely has enough money to pay his bills with his pension and has recently been hospitalised with flu and a shoulder problem after a fall and just starting to bounce back and having to deal with Phoenix Life to chase the missing payments. He has spoken to multiple people on the call desk over the last few weeks and keeps being fobbed off telling him he will receive it shortly. He has threatened to make a complaint, contact press and a solicitor but at his age he doesn't need the stress of any of that living overseas 

Can anybody suggest a best way to quickly resolve this, get his payments restarted 

Submit a formal complaint, they are required to respond, he can then take them to the regulator if they do not get things sorted. 

PaulandLucy said:

and claim any compensation that is due for this MASSIVE inconvenience and stress. Thanks. Paul

If he can demonstrate losses or costs which have occurred because of this (potentially interest in overdraft or credit card he has had to use) then he is entitled to have those costs reimbursed. Other than that unless there is a contractual amount stated then he may get a gesture of good will, but is unlikely to get anything more than £50-150.

DullGreyGuy

PaulandLucy said:

Hi, my partner's father is 86 years old and currently lives in the Dordogne in France. He receives a monthly pension of £800 from Phoenix Life on the 27th of each month. The last payment they made to him was 27th January and they have failed to pay on the 27th February and 27th March. He barely has enough money to pay his bills with his pension and has recently been hospitalised with flu and a shoulder problem after a fall and just starting to bounce back and having to deal with Phoenix Life to chase the missing payments. He has spoken to multiple people on the call desk over the last few weeks and keeps being fobbed off telling him he will receive it shortly. He has threatened to make a complaint, contact press and a solicitor but at his age he doesn't need the stress of any of that living overseas 

Can anybody suggest a best way to quickly resolve this, get his payments restarted and claim any compensation that is due for this MASSIVE inconvenience and stress. Thanks. Paul

Given his age and the fact he is living overseas its fairly likely they are doing a proof of life process every 1-2 years because they won't be getting a feed of all deaths in France as they do for people in the UK. 

When was the last time he received a request for him to confirm he's alive? Did he respond to it?

The normal response if someone doesnt respond to the proof of life request after a couple of months is to stop the payment because thats a very efficient mechanism to get people to respond. 


You say he has already spoken to them... so what's their explanation as to why its stopped?

FIREDreamer

Did they send him a proof of existence form? If they did and he didn’t return it, they might think he is dead and that is possibly why the annuity payments have ceased.

QrizB

PaulandLucy said:

Hi, my partner's father is 86 years old .... He barely has enough money to pay his bills

As loving children/in-laws, are you able to fund him £800 a month until this gets sorted out?

DullGreyGuy said:

Given his age and the fact he is living overseas its fairly likely they are doing a proof of life process every 1-2 years because they won't be getting a feed of all deaths in France as they do for people in the UK.
When was the last time he received a request for him to confirm he's alive? Did he respond to it?

That was my thought, too.

DullGreyGuy said:

.You say he has already spoken to them... so what's their explanation as to why its stopped?

It would probably be useful to know what they said, yes.