Frustrating experience with Aviva's pension customer service

dunstonh

How are people supposed to know what a pension provider can and can’t do? 

It's a good point, but we are where we are for historical reasons, regulations, and changes in consumer markets.

Remember that 30 years ago, virtually nobody did DIY on their pensions, and the majority of the providers had agents, or the consumer had an IFA.   There were over 300,000 agents/IFAs at its peak.   Today, just 20,000.

From the first post, it's unclear if the OP is using the small pots rule or UFPLS, and on the other plans, they want to use income drawdown.   Or if they believe that the 25% on each plan can be combined and taken from a single or multiple plans.      If the OP isn't explaining what they want to us, then chances are they are not explaining it well to Aviva either.  And as Aviva can only take instructions, you inevitably end up in a standoff.

However, Aviva would almost certainly have told the OP that they should seek advice from an IFA or use Pensionwise.  Pensionwise won't give advice but they would correct misconceptions.   Aviva have lots of explanations in their guides and options packs that they send out.  It just needs to be read.

MeteredOut

NoMore said:

While I agree with Marcon and Dazed, it does demonstrate the advice gap that a lot of people have. They just don’t understand their options when drawing pensions. I’m surprised that Aviva didn’t at least direct them towards pension wise, which was specifically set up to help people understand their options without straying into regulated advice

 https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise

I've just withdrawn the 25% TFC from an Aviva pension (policy number starts TK, which the OP also mentions).

Aviva could not have provided more details on the options available for extracting cash, drawdown, annuities etc. Before requesting a quotation online, their website forces you to view the different options, with loads of information about each and the potential tax implications of each. It asks if you have received advice, asks if you have contacted pension wise, and if not, recommends that you do that (but does not stop you if you say no).

And then the quotation itself contains a huge about of detail and information, which you have to confirm you have read.

I'd be surprised if their telephony agents did not follow a similar process.

Now perhaps the OP did not get that level of detail, but I certainly did.

MeteredOut

Rich1976 said:

How are people supposed to know what a pension provider can and can’t do? To anyone not in the know it does appear a simple request. I can understand why the OP is frustrated that they can’t do what they consider to be a reasonable request and that the helpline couldn’t find one policy because as it turns out it is operated by another part of Aviva. If everything is on Aviva headed paper then you would expect everything to be viewable by customer services.

Learn about it yourself, or pay someone else for the service. As with most other things in life.

Rich1976

MeteredOut said:

Rich1976 said:

How are people supposed to know what a pension provider can and can’t do? To anyone not in the know it does appear a simple request. I can understand why the OP is frustrated that they can’t do what they consider to be a reasonable request and that the helpline couldn’t find one policy because as it turns out it is operated by another part of Aviva. If everything is on Aviva headed paper then you would expect everything to be viewable by customer services.

Learn about it yourself, or pay someone else for the service. As with most other things in life.

I get that. I was trying to see it from the other persons point of view.  Unlike some on here, I am guessing  ( but also from the attitude of colleagues at work ) that the vast majority of people have little knowledge of pensions in general and the first time they are forced to take a more active role is when they come to retire and then it’s a total minefield.

so would be easy for them to assume that what, in their mind is straight forward is anything but. 

Marcon

Rich1976 said:

MeteredOut said:

Rich1976 said:

How are people supposed to know what a pension provider can and can’t do? To anyone not in the know it does appear a simple request. I can understand why the OP is frustrated that they can’t do what they consider to be a reasonable request and that the helpline couldn’t find one policy because as it turns out it is operated by another part of Aviva. If everything is on Aviva headed paper then you would expect everything to be viewable by customer services.

Learn about it yourself, or pay someone else for the service. As with most other things in life.

I get that. I was trying to see it from the other persons point of view.  Unlike some on here, I am guessing  ( but also from the attitude of colleagues at work ) that the vast majority of people have little knowledge of pensions in general and the first time they are forced to take a more active role is when they come to retire and then it’s a total minefield.

so would be easy for them to assume that what, in their mind is straight forward is anything but. 

You may be guessing, but a lot of us on here know that to be the case!

DRS1

MeteredOut said:

NoMore said:

While I agree with Marcon and Dazed, it does demonstrate the advice gap that a lot of people have. They just don’t understand their options when drawing pensions. I’m surprised that Aviva didn’t at least direct them towards pension wise, which was specifically set up to help people understand their options without straying into regulated advice

 https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise

I've just withdrawn the 25% TFC from an Aviva pension (policy number starts TK, which the OP also mentions).

Aviva could not have provided more details on the options available for extracting cash, drawdown, annuities etc. Before requesting a quotation online, their website forces you to view the different options, with loads of information about each and the potential tax implications of each. It asks if you have received advice, asks if you have contacted pension wise, and if not, recommends that you do that (but does not stop you if you say no).

And then the quotation itself contains a huge about of detail and information, which you have to confirm you have read.

I'd be surprised if their telephony agents did not follow a similar process.

Now perhaps the OP did not get that level of detail, but I certainly did.

I took TFLS and an annuity from 4 Aviva policies last year and can confirm that in each case I got a book explaining the choices and statements that I should consult Moneyhelper (by the time you have read the third book it gets a bit boring but one of them sent me an out of date version which kept me awake).  I don't think the customer service advisers actually take you through all the stuff that is in the book (though they certainly do have a script which you have to go through each time you talk to somebody to make sure you understand what you are doing or are recorded as saying you do).

The reason I had 4 Aviva policies is that Aviva took over two of the other companies I had policies with (Friends Life and Provident Mutual).  I agree with the OP that it is frustrating when the adviser cannot see the "other" policies.  I could understand it for the one dealt with in Bristol but when one of the "others" was dealt with in Norwich you could be forgiven for thinking it would be on the same system.  Anyway part of the OP's problem is not regulatory it is that Aviva has taken over so many other companies and hasn't integrated the computer systems.

Though it is interesting that the online portal MyAviva could show all 4 of my policies - so presumably they are making some progress.

One other thing - in the books it does say you can take 100% of your policy as cash (and yes it does explain the tax consequences).  So the OP was not completely out of order asking for 100% cash for one of the policies (even if he may have misunderstood how it would be taxed).

A big problem with having the same conversation with 3 different people is that you get a bit tired of it and this may come across to them - I certainly was asked more than once if I wanted to make a complaint.  You need to give yourself a break between calls and accept that you can't get away with just one call because everything is handled by Aviva.

cfw1994

Another lengthy first post.
Again, kudos to those who responded.
Look forward to the OP next reply.

ali_bear

When a company such as Avivia acquires a 'book' from another company perhaps after swallowing it up. They will assess the back office systems and make the decision to either keep it going as-is or move it over to a newer compute platform. The fact that there are many legacy systems floating around indicates the difficulty (i.e. cost) of moving or more fully integrating them. This has the side-effect of keeping some older IT bods in gainful employment (COBOL anyone?). 

One thing a person can do to simplify matters is combine their DC pots before retirement. 

dunstonh

Not so many years ago Aviva spent a massive amount trying to bring systems together. It cannot recall how much but it was close to 1bn.  Just recently, it spent £63m on its platform software, which isn't a legacy system but one of its most up-to-date.

Despite the massive spending, they still couldn't get rid of some of the systems and have to run them away from their main system. 

I suspect that a lot of this is due to cost.  e.g. (using hypothetical figures)
3000 people left holding a pre-1988 hybrid pension plan, but bringing that plan onto the modern system will cost £60m.    Those 3000 plans are declining by about 200 a year and are expected to mature within 15 years (either onto annuity or transferred to a modern pension for drawdown).

Aviva have been offering special terms for customers via their IFA to transfer legacy plans onto the Aviva platform as a means to accelerate the closure of legacy plans.  


 

Marcon

cfw1994 said:

Another lengthy first post.
Again, kudos to those who responded.
Look forward to the OP next reply.

Funny how often there isn't a response from a poster when they have posted at length complaining about a provider, and the answers here have clarified why the issue is the poster's lack of understanding rather than the provider's lack of helpfulness.

It's really good when someone has the grace to post again and confirm that they've now understood the position and simply made a mistake (haven't we all, in one area or another). It's great knowing that they will be sailing into retirement without a mega chip on their shoulder, or a sense of grievance clouding the future.