Royal London – caution for overseas pension holders

Aurora31

I’m posting this as a factual heads-up for anyone with a Royal London pension who is living overseas, or considering a move abroad.

Over an extended period, I was given multiple instances of incorrect information by Royal London about my pension options, including being told drawdown was available when it was not, and being explicitly reassured that a direct debit had been switched off when it had not. These were not one-off misunderstandings but repeated errors at key decision points.

Royal London also did not proactively inform me of a material policy change restricting retirement options for overseas customers, despite holding my overseas address for years. This meant I wasn’t able to make fully informed decisions at the appropriate time.

Some compensation was paid, but it felt procedural rather than proportionate to the cumulative stress and effort involved. The matter ultimately went through the Financial Ombudsman Service and is now closed.

My takeaway for others is to be particularly cautious if you are overseas: get everything confirmed in writing, double-check advice independently, and don’t rely solely on verbal assurances.

I’m not seeking debate or escalation here — just sharing experience so others can make informed choices.

dunstonh

Royal London also did not proactively inform me of a material policy change restricting retirement options for overseas customers, despite holding my overseas address for years. This meant I wasn’t able to make fully informed decisions at the appropriate time.

Legal changes have led most providers to put in place restrictions.

My takeaway for others is to be particularly cautious if you are overseas: get everything confirmed in writing, double-check advice independently, and don’t rely solely on verbal assurances.

It doesn't really matter if you get things confirmed in writing, as circumstances change.   For example, the requirement for UK financial services companies to stop offering financial services and products to EU residents was a change.    The US FATCA regs resulted in a change.

Also, most providers, including RL, do not hold advice permissions.  So, their call centre staff cannot give opinion or advice.  They can only go by what their script allows them.   This means responses will often be limited and may be answering a question that you asked, but not in the way you intended.   For example, if you ask:   

Do you offer drawdown?   RL could answer yes to that.     
Or, does my plan support drawdown?    RL could answer yes to that if its a post 17/12/07 plan.

Its almost like AI.    If you get the question wrong, the answer will often be incomplete or wrong.

The call centre worker will have info about what the plan can do or what RL can do but they wont have much on nuances or unusual circumstances.

Over an extended period, I was given multiple instances of incorrect information by Royal London about my pension options, including being told drawdown was available when it was not, 

RL (Scot Life, not CIS) plans set up before 17/12/2007 cannot use drawdown.  However, RL can transfer to a new RL plan that supports drawdown (or you can select another provider).   So, technically, drawdown was available in their eyes.

There are also differnet types of drawdown.  Aviva, for example, will say they support drawdown on many of their legacy plans.   However, if you then ask about what types of drawdown, you find only some of the types of drawdown are available (e.g. ability to take 25% TFC but unable to pay a regular income)

Royal London also did not proactively inform me of a material policy change restricting retirement options for overseas customers, despite holding my overseas address for years. This meant I wasn’t able to make fully informed decisions at the appropriate time.

If you are a resident of a country on the sanctions list, US or EU, then you are going to have issues.   Those in the US and EU can get options, but the range is limited.  

It would help if you said which country you are a resident of, as the options/issues vary by country.

I’m not seeking debate or escalation here — just sharing experience so others can make informed choices.

This is a discussion board.   By posting here, that is exactly what you are doing.

Section62

Neither a pension nor an overseas issue, but RL have deeply unimpressed me through their lack of any kind of online service for ex-CIS ISAs and investment accounts.  Not even view-only visibility of accounts or basic account management.

When we are at a point where tiny building societies (with some notable bigger exceptions like Nottingham) are providing online access to a greater or lesser degree, RL are way behind with their continued reliance on the postal system.

dunstonh

Neither a pension nor an overseas issue, but RL have deeply unimpressed me through their lack of any kind of online service for ex-CIS ISAs and investment accounts.  Not even view-only visibility of accounts or basic account management.

Not really their fault, though.   They are still operating them out of Manchester on CIS systems.   

CIS had a number of plan and product types that were not offered by Royal London.    So, any replacement system would need to be built from the ground up.  That is time-consuming and extremely difficult.    If you look at other providers that have taken on closed or zombie books, you will find similar with them.


When we are at a point where tiny building societies (with some notable bigger exceptions like Nottingham) are providing online access to a greater or lesser degree, RL are way behind with their continued reliance on the postal system.Not really comparable. It's much easier to migrate bank accounts than to migrate hundreds of different product types with terms that need to be retained and cannot be changed.  Many of those terms, RL would have to understand and replicate.

It may not be commercially viable with many of the plans (again, this has been seen with other providers).  If you have say 100 people left on a 1970s plan paying fees of £19,000 a year and your IT department says it will cost £5million to move those 100 people onto a new system, would you do it?

MyRealNameToo

dunstonh said:
Many of those terms, RL would have to understand and replicate.

It may not be commercially viable with many of the plans (again, this has been seen with other providers).  If you have say 100 people left on a 1970s plan paying fees of £19,000 a year and your IT department says it will cost £5million to move those 100 people onto a new system, would you do it?

That isnt to say that they dont operationally abide by the terms. 

At a previous place which did long tail business their system had a flag which showed if there was a death benefit. Operationally upon notification of a death the team would pull the original paperwork and read if there was or wasnt and not go by the flag.

If you looked in the db behind the system that flag had three positions (1, 0 and null). The actuaries had messed up and taken null to be the same as 0. A colleague, who'd been there boy and man, pointed out that the flag was only added in 2001 as before that they had no way of telling but they only pulled peoples paperwork as far back as 1990 to set the flag and left the older ones as null. 

Operationally things worked correctly but the actuaries were under reserving as they assumed all pre 1990 policies had no death benefits and that wasnt true. 

This is the problem, the project team estimate the cost at £5m but the exec say it has to be done cheaper so mechanisms to cut corners are taken, like only going so far back in history. Operationally it's ok because those doing it day in day out just do what they were told. The problem comes in the more remote parts of the business where the corporate memory is missing and someone doesnt really understand the difference between 0 and null.