I thought It'd be useful to update the thread with my wife and my experience of Aviva and its maladministration. Not least because it signally failed to stop digging in the interim.
Here's what has happened to date to each of us:
Aviva took from mid February until mid May to give the scheme rules v-a-v the treatment of my pension to our IFA. There was no explanation, nor apology, and I had to deliver information to them (which they took until late April to even request from me - and which I returned to them in a day) in order that they could then tell me what my options were. Our IFA finally received them late last week and can now complete his planning for us.
Aviva has just sent my latest Annual Plan Summary. It's my largest holding, and a not insignificant number, at least to me. The financial summary does not add up - literally does not add up, it's a gobbledegook of apparently random numbers. My IFA contacted them today. They say it is a clerical input error and it will be reissued.
Aviva is also my wife's largest pension holding, another significant sum. Our Advisor requested her first drawdown on 15th March, well within Aviva's SLA, to ensure she used her 24-25 Personal Allowance. My wife finally received the second part of her drawdown (the non TFLS payment) on 14th May, over 2 weeks after the TFLS portion (28th April, already weeks after the Tax Year End), and only after the IFA chased its payment. Nobody could explain why it had not been paid when the first part had, it had simply been overlooked. As you will see below, Aviva are very sorry, they offer no particular explanation for the initial error that my wife, across several calls over c5 hours in March pointed out to them* save to say that they did not understand what our IFA was requesting on our behalf - which is really quite remarkable, if one thinks about it. It's also obviously nonsense, since they sent her a drawdown quotation - just an incorrectly calculated one.
Aviva unilaterally opened a complaint (they didn't ask my wife to frame it, nor did they confirm its terms with her) - which they subsequently apologised was taking them longer than their usual SLA to investigate and resolve. They have now accepted that this whole situation was completely their error, and made a compensatory payment, which was received prior to their 'sorry' letter's arrival. Unfortunately, whilst it's several hundred pounds, it's well short of her consequential loss, so we will have to go back to detail these losses and seek further compensation.
We are of the view that there is something wrong with Aviva's core business processes - it gets fundamental things wrong, like simple drawdowns, and annual statements, and it is unable to tell plan holders what their options and benefits are as they come up to retirement. It fails to resolve them in a timely manner. It has already caused untold stress to both of us, just at a time when things should run smoothly, and there will be still more to come when we have to seek full compensation.
It's a sample of only two, and they were originally (different) schemes that Aviva** acquired roughly 10-12 years ago but between us we have pensions with no fewer than 9 companies in total, so we're perhaps in a better position than many to weigh different providers' service. It's hard for us to trust an organisation which takes such little care in the administration of something so important.
*Their quotation numbers did not make sense because her drawdown account would be in a negative balance - something that is obviously impossible - as she attempted, unsuccessfully, to explain to them on multiple calls.
**Aviva is itself a relatively recent construct, albeit one which can trace a thread of history back a long way - many (most?) Aviva Plans exist because they bought the pension business of, or merged with other providers and created the Aviva brand. In so doing it assumed the FCA duty and moral responsibility to correctly administer its customers' accounts, irrespective of their origins.
