Abbey Life Insurance

An utterly dismal experience from beginning to expensive and pointless end. Pension value £0...thanks to huge charges, opaque admin. I have absolutely nothing whatsoever positive to say about Abbey Life or its pension...nothing whatsoever. Every year I get reams and reams of information with regards to my tiny but fast disappearing pension pot, helped along by what are now 25% administration charges....yes 25%. I was tricked into taking this out when I was a naive graduate and dropped them as soon as I saw sense....every penny that I invested then is wasted. It wasn't much but I could really have done with it in those days. If I have one piece of advice to my younger self it would be..... don't get a pension with anyone other than the Teachers Pension or a similar Civil-Service scheme, be cautious about commercial companies and never let the Abbey Life vampire through your door.

I don't even know where to begin with this as I'm lost for words following the shambolic customer service I have received

Anyway Dec 2016 I received a letter advising they had traced a pension policy I had not received , upon phoning them they refused to discuss it as my details on their system were out of date and I wad asked to send my original marriage and birth certificate, which I did atheist same day , I left it a week before calling back , but details had still not been updated .........fast forward 6 weeks and numerous phone calls made by me , they had found my documents buried in their post room somewhere , but then they lost them again ( I had the birth certificate for 60 years so I wad very upset ) I have never got them back so they agreed to pay compensation, 8 months on and this remains unresolved, no one ever calls me back , they promise to resolve on phone and then do nothing, after all this the policy turned out to be worth £12 !!!!!!!! And if they had told me this at the time I would have told them to keep it , every person I have spoken to has been useless , I have spent the last 4 months taliking to the same person who is a total joke

I have just called him again , and he said oh yes we need to sort this out !!!!!!!!!

I just keep going round in circles with them , and get nowhere , now they've lost my original I'd which I sent in , 8 weeks later I am still awaiting a reply , no one bothers to return may calls , now referred to financial ombudsman,

Following 6 phone calls and relevant forms completed and returned, my husband and I are still no further forward in receiving the surrender proceeds of our joint life assurance policy. I now have to submit proof of Identification despite them having received the monthly premiums from my own bank account since 1993 !! and answering the relevant " for security purposes" questions !!!! . The customer service staff are undeniably unhelpful condescending and hostile. They try to hide behind Data Protection law and Money Laundering Regulations all of which I am sure the Regulatory Ombudmans would love to hear about. As a professional who provides client legal advice I can honestly say that I have never in my life came across such a company. They should be held accountable for the incompetent way in which they handle and process customer/policy holders queries and complaints . Please do not go near this company

Be expected to realise that Abbey Life think your money is actually theirs and be prepared to be stalled at every opportunity.

Abbey life admit to having all the paper work necessary to process my matured pension which is being held in a holding account since july 2nd 2015

Despite numerous phone calls at 2p per minute to their helpline (normally held in a queue playing their piped in music at your expense for over 20 minutes)

I am getting nowhere.

Oh if you try to contact them by email they say that they will reply by post ( snail mail) within 14 days

do not touch this company with a barge pole

R.Dickson

I like so many other have been trying to cash in a small pension pot with Abbey Life 2 months later i still cannot even be told how much i am entitled to as they are working out fees !!. Customer service is a joke and make customers pay for every call. I have had several letters telling me that it is being dealt with but no pay out, is it not about time this company was looked into by the ombudsman. We should all complain in the hope that people power works. Disgusting company

I have been trying to withdraw my pension pot since May, it's only a relatively small amount (just over 10K).

They've had all the completed paperwork etc since early June after ridiculous amounts of letter exchanges.

Waste of time phoning with waiting times up to an hour - never known any company quite that bad.

Abbey Life have still failed to make my payment 6 weeks later I and can't get any response from them.

It is paramount to illegally with-holding someone's money and I've been stressed out about this for weeks.

But who is there to complain to? This kind of thing should be stopped by the Government or Legal authorities.

Agree with other reviews. Been waiting 7 weeks, still waiting for another form to be sent before any payments. Its disgusting, should not be allowed to do this.Spoken to other people, don't seem to have had problems with other companys.

on its web site says ‘Abbey Life aims to be a solid and dependable organisation that is recognised for operating to high standards, providing good levels of service to our customers

holding on to my pension pot for as long as possible and probably everyone with a pension pot wanting to take it out

40 minuets waiting time on different calls was told 28 days then phoned first time called again and told they were dealing with pensions 7 days a week now 2 months later nothing! no help wont tell me when and don't care about people attitude is shocking