Aviva pension policy disappeared from MyAviva

Bl4derunner

Hi,

Posting here out of desperation as Aviva are unable to correct an admitted 'error'.

I have a pension with Aviva which was originally with Friends Provident that Aviva took over 10 years ago. It has a different policy number than the standard AVxxxxxxx format. There must be many many thousands of people with similar policies.

For many years I have been able to access this pension on the My Aviva website.

In January my policy simply disappeared from My Aviva. It seems Aviva carried out some changes to their IT systems and they confirmed there were some 'errors'. Despite being told on numerous occasions over the past few months 'it will be available on Monday', it is still missing.

Yesterday I received a curt email stating my pension was 'not eligible' to view online. I assume a very large number of their customers are also considered 'not eligible'.

It is clear Aviva's IT changes failed and they are unable to fix it. This in itself is extremely worrying for a major financial institution.

Has anybody else had similar problems and have they had a resolution?

As an aside, I asked for an up to date value of my pension. I was told they were unable to tell me over the phone and they would write to me. This could take '11 days'!. In the even it took about 3 weeks which, to me, seems insanely slow.

Can anybody offer any advice?

Thank you.

Marcon

Posting here out of desperation as Aviva are unable to correct an admitted 'error'.

You can't see the policy online and it takes longer to get a value than you'd like - but the policy is still safely there and your funds are completely safe.

What are you 'desperate' about?

It is clear Aviva's IT changes failed and they are unable to fix it. This in itself is extremely worrying for a major financial institution.

You are making assumptions about the number of people affected. More likely that with legacy policies like this the expenditure simply isn't worth it. That's a commercial decision and hardly 'extremely worrying'.

Can anybody offer any advice?

I appreciate it's annoying and frustrating to be told/promised something that then doesn't materialise, but there is nothing whatsoever to suggest anything untoward has happened to your pension savings. Make a formal complaint if it would make you feel better, but otherwise…maybe consider if you might be overreacting a bit?

Albermarle

You may want to consider transferring the pension out to another provider, so you can get full online access and probably more flexibility when it comes to withdraw ( older pensions tend to have less options).

It is relatively easy to organise a transfer. Other providers are happy to get new customers and make it easy to initiate a transfer. You will just need of course the details of the Aviva pension.

Or you could transfer to a new Aviva pension.

The only issue will be is if the pension you have has some guaranteed rights associated with it.

dunstonh

I have a pension with Aviva which was originally with Friends Provident that Aviva took over 10 years ago. It has a different policy number than the standard AVxxxxxxx format. There must be many many thousands of people with similar policies.

AV indicates Aviva platform.

For many years I have been able to access this pension on the My Aviva website.

Correct. FP plans operated on FP software out of Milford. Aviva are slowly starting to get data on some plan types appearing on their website but some will never appear. Just as some CGNU plans don't appear.

It is clear Aviva's IT changes failed and they are unable to fix it. This in itself is extremely worrying for a major financial institution.

That is an unsafe assumption. Getting legacy plans to appear correctly on modern software is a bit of nightmare. You cannot shorehorn them all in and some you just have to accept will never appear or may get taken off line if they cannot meet the latest requirements.

If you want modern functionality, then you should move it to a modern plan. Aviva often give discounts for moving old Life and pension plans to their platform. If there are no safeguarded benefits or contractural reasons to stick with an old fashioned product, then move it.

Bl4derunner

Thanks for the feedback it is useful and I appreciate it.

I worked in IT for many decades on just such systems as Aviva's and these problems simply would not have been tolerated. However, as pointed out, I am coming to the conclusion that Aviva have given up trying to migrate old Friends Provident policies and so I might also have to give up.

I will explore the possibility of moving to a new Aviva policy although, if they can't easily pick up the current value and display it on their website, I'm not hopeful.

I will probably just have to register a complaint and be content that I've tried my best.

Back to getting valuations every three weeks delived by post. How quaint.

ali_bear

I used to have a Friends Provident policy that was taken over by Aviva. When I registered with the MyAviva (or whatever it was called) I had both that and my workplace scheme visible, both with TK prefix. I transferred it into the workplace scheme several years ago. Never had any problems.

dunstonh

I worked in IT for many decades on just such systems as Aviva's and these problems simply would not have been tolerated.

I think you underestimate the level of work and cost.

Most of these legacy plans are on hard-coded systems. And not just one hard coded system. You have thousands of different plan versions, which means any modern software has to cater for every single plan version. And with pensions, you don't have one set of laws applying to all of them. Many plans have terms that don't exist with modern plans. So, you need to ensure that it's not just the coding, but the plan differences, their T&C and the law they were based under. The reality is that the knowledge and T&C for the older legacy plans are only known to the software, not in some bible of plan details. They have to ensure that the T&C for each plan type is understood and checked by legal teams before they can even dream of getting it recoded on modern software. And that software has to be recoded for every single unique term that didn't exist on other plans. Hybrid plans are the worst, as each plan often has its own terms.

Each plan version can cost millions of pounds to move to new software but there may only be a few dozen to a few hundred people left on some plan versions. So spending millions on moving them doesn't have a strong business case.

 I am coming to the conclusion that Aviva have given up trying to migrate old Friends Provident policies and so I might also have to give up.

That is not correct. But remember that Friends wasn't just FP. It was AXA Sun Life and a bunch or other brands. And FP plans were set up in a different way to CGNU plans. Especially the NGP plans with Fxxxxx/xxx format.

It is all down to budget and time.

Back to getting valuations every three weeks delived by post. How quaint.

If you need a value every three weeks on a legacy plan then clearly you are not on the right contract. The vast majority of people don't need that frequency of valuations. So, you are an outlier. Hence moving to a modern contract makes more sense.

Aylesbury_Duck

I had a former FP policy that showed online and in the app right up to the point when my transfer to an Aviva SIPP completed this week.

Bl4derunner

Thanks for all the comments. It seems other FP policy holders are not experiencing the same problems so probably not a widespread issue.

As previously mentioned I have decades of experience working with and building just such systems as Aviva's so do have a deep understanding of the issues, and costs, involved.

That being said, it looks like I have done all I can so will now stop monitoring this thread.

Thanks again.

butterflymum

@Bl4derunner, just in case you look in on the thread again or it helps someone else with a similar issue…..

Do you have more than one Pension with Aviva? Is it possible you have previously logged in via their Aviva MyPortfolio platform, which confusingly can display all Pension, MyMoney and Home headings within it, and perhaps previously you logged in via their MyMoney platform and/or MyWorkplace, which doesn't show the other products? It would seem all the platforms are current, and you may have different log on details for each. Even more confusingly, it would seem that if viewing a work pension on the MyMoney platform or MyWorkplace platform and then you view same pension under MyMoney heading on the MyPortfolio platform, the figure can be different as, I think, the platorms update at different times of the day.

zardoz2025

I have two former AXA pensions, which via Friends Provident ended up with Aviva.

One I can see online. The other (a "BK" policy) I've NEVER been able to see online, and it's clear that it's never going to happen. I genuinely don't understand why, as it's a simple individual stakeholder pension which I used to deposit spare money, and get the 40% tax relief.

I will move them both into a SIPP now.