Phoenix Life Arvostelua 3 207

Avoid this company like the plague! And beware their changing their name to Standard Life Ltd, because of adverse publicity and poor Trustpilot reviews. So what’s wrong with them, customer service is appalling, promising numerous times to call me back, it just doesn’t happen! Tried their App, just as bad and anything important, like values we’re not an available!

I received my annual pension statement with a projection in 5 years time showing as less than the current value. I queried this and they could not come up with a plausible explanation but said they'd send out another statement. It felt like they were going to pick a number out of thin air so that I would go away. I will be transferring out as soon as I possibly can.

Phoned phoenix life to discuss taking my pensions early and was told that I had to speak to a different department as I had 5 policies and it was complicated.
I insisted it was very important that someone phoned me back and I was left on hold for nearly an hour and then told someone would phone me back within 3 working days.
I then phoned up on the 3 rd working day and was told they are very busy.
Awful company that don't reply to customers.

3 years ago I had to deal with my father in laws pension annuity plans (Phoenix life)as 50% had been left to his wife ....
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Whilst ALL other organisations were simplistic , sympathetic and easy to use as I was informed by most of central government register that things could be confirmed by them ...
Phoenix life however fall at the exact opposite of the scale ...unhelpful to be polite
In my father in laws case they insisted on original death certificate , original marriage certificate and original birth certificate with nothing more than "its procedure " as a reason for all 3 documents when as stated
no other organisations needed even the death certificate and also baring in mind that both marriage and birth certificate would have been witnessed at policy set up ...
It took weeks to sort , whilst ALLothers were dealt with in minutes...
Forward 3 and half years and my mother in law who was the beneficiary @ 50% of the above policies passed away on 23rd Jan 26 .
I rang Phoenix life on Monday 27th to inform them as these policies would no longer exist as they were set to expire on her death ......only to be told by bethany that they needed to see the wills of both parties ....(why when there is no residual benefit to anyone is mind boggling ) .
Then she informed me that her computer was not working properly and I shall be put on a call back system......!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 days later I rang back again and this time got a lady called sumreen ...
Send in the death certificate ....
No apology, a minor sign of sympathy and zero empathy to the situation ....just send the death certificate.... not even a cover note I asked ..... well of course like I'm some idiot .....
Just the address ....well the admin department should do ....

Why this organisation can't use the same approach to 90% of all other companies and use the government register for such things and at least try to be a little more helpful towards there clients is beyond me as an ex finance adviser ....
I actually refused 2 years ago via my ifa when setting up my pension to use Phoenix life as a provider and have for the last 3 and half years recanted the facts of this turn of events to many people as a warning.....I am aware this barely scratches there skin but I feel people need to know what sort of company they are dealing with .....

Now they have sent a claim pack for a policy that has no beneficiary as it dies with the client with no residual value ...... the leval of unprofessional conduct is at a new height in my opinion

I have requested an update on my pension account several times with no response. I am trying to sort this out now to save my family having to do this upon my death. I can only feel sorry for any grieving families having to deal with these issues. Get your act together, it’s not good enough!

Decided to purchase an annuity with a different provider & specified the retirement date to ensure I would receive the full value of my pension pot.
They used a date prior to that & I have lost 50% of my fund.
Formal complaint logged in November, the last letter from them was dated 17th December promising a final response in 4 weeks.
The deadline has now passed & I have escalated my complaint to Financial Ombudsman

No response to complaint so next step FSO. Very difficult and poor customer service. The email number given didn't even work. Wish I had moved my pension plan when I had the chance. PLEASE AVOID THIS AWFUL GREEDY COMPANY

Its been a over a year since this shocking company contacted me about my late husbands pensions. They wrote about one policy with details and claim forms with about 20 dumb questions. Fill in send back. Then I get another policy then another and other. I filled in the claim forms. Send relevant documents. Numerous phone calls. Getting nowhere. One employee said im not entitled as we was married. Despite me sending all documents.
I said eventually I would contact a solicitor. Thats been done. Still nothing. I doubt i will see the money.

Impossible to contact by phone, through the contact form on the website or via the bereavement form. At a time of grief and stress, this is disappointing in the extreme

My policy lasped they refusing tovpay me i made a complaint they sent a letter out 19th december and only recived yesterday i was there eill 8 weeks before will call me now my policy has lapsed taken my funds

Sadly, my pension company was taken over by Phoenix Life. Once I reached 75 they stopped investing my pension fund. It then took 10 months to transfer the fund into a different company thus losing my growing money. My wife has a savings bond, and annual statements stopped coming. When eventually they arrived, they were wrong in that they no longer showed the bonus units. PL have failed to produce a satisfactory response in 4 months. Morale: Don't invest and get out quick.

I notified Phoenix Life of my brothers death in July 2025. It took 6 months, numerous telephone calls and a formal complaint, followed by more telephone calls, being told things had been done when they clearly had not, more telephone calls before the beneficiaries of my brothers pension were all finally paid by the end of December. If this is how bereaved families are treated it says a lot about how this company regard their clients.
I would not recommend putting your money in Phoenix Life if you expect to get it out at some point.

Avoid
Not to mention all the unresolved complaints and problems with their service my late late mother had a life insurance of over 24k and they would only pay out just under 5k.

Scammers.
Every excuse to delay transferring my fund to pensionbee.
Default excuse, Forms no received, even though they had been posted multiple times, we will send them again.
Staff cannot even stick to the same excuse.
Contacted them several times in June 2025, regarding my with profits policy that matured in November 2025.
No problem, we use origo.
Pensionbee initiated transfer in November.
17 weeks later, it was transferred.
At least a dozen phone calls. Same with messages on the portal, which do not receive a reply. 2 complaints. They couldn’t initially find my policy. Returned forms disappearing regularly.
I have since read they are a zombie pension company.

I can never speak with anyone except the Customer Contact Centre regarding my account. CCC constantly state the customer care team ( that I'm told can handle my enquiry) are ALWAYS busy and I have to wait 24/72 hours for a call back. Ive had one call back out of 3 previous calls to them, that I missed because they didn't call the correct number!

Extremely frustrating and unacceptable.

This is the first time I have had to contact them, but the contact number given does not deal with my plan. The problem was passed on but promised calls do not happen, then weeks later calls get automated response that there are system issues and cut the call off.

If I could give lower I would
Do not use this company ,they are unbelievable , totally unprofessional
And with hold your own money outside their own terms and conditions
Had policies forced to be under them since 1991 .
Now they have to pay out they become invisible
I have been waiting for my money for over two months .Your complaints team has chased this .i now want your customer service directors email.Customer complaints directors email.Your Compliance Directors email.Head of Draw down details .Send them to the above email Monday This will be added to my overall complaint to FCA and any other regulatory body you answer to and on several social media outlets.Give me my money AR

My father died 2017 and 8.5 years later they keep sending policy info, yet wont give any information about the policy. filled out many paper work as requested. dozens of hours on the phone, nice helpful yet NOTHING ever progresses. Today received a letter back to square one vile company totally inept.

Phoenix's CEO - TAKE NOTE of all the other negative comments! A company that took over other companies and does nothing to support you, because of this. As one of their (non) so called Phoenix customers, you can't have access to their website, whilst others can and you're left having to ring every time for any information. which then always arrives in a pack of numerous bits of paper to read through. This lack of choice also applies to receiving information via emails, (none) even though I have asked repeatedly to receive information that way, to support reasonable adjustment. There is no consideration to the Neurodivergent community. Every time you ring, staff give you a different answer and I have made so many calls to gain clarity of what service I can receive from Phoenix Life, So frustrating! I can't add all the dates to note my experiences but one date is not the whole story.

I'm currently with TPT who are part of Pheonix and if it was possible to rate a negative star, I would! What an absolute shambles.
They're dragging their feet on transferring my pension to a far better company. Departments don't communicate, operatives apparently can't access forms to send manually. They're reading a script and cannot possibly be flexible or veer away from said script. Formal complaint raised. Advised I would get a call from a senior manager and still waiting.