Windsor under fire over pension transfer delays

Money Management has learnt that customer service problems and delays persist at Windsor Life, despite its insistence earlier this year that it had solved the issues that arose following its takeover of Tomorrow (formerly GE Life).

John Stewart, director of PMI Independent Financial Advisers, submitted a request on 11 June 2008 to have two pension policies transferred to Norwich Union from Windsor Life.

A series of hold ups then occurred, in which Stewart claims that Windsor Life lost the forms and was consistently difficult to contact by telephone. He added that his client had to submit several forms twice because Windsor Life claimed that it had not received them.

Stewart said that his client lost a minimum of £1,700 from his pension, the amount that the fund dropped between June and October. "It's the worst experience we've ever had with retirement plans," he said. "It should be very easily done within a month, but four months is farcical."

This latest event comes six months after Money Management exclusively revealed that Windsor Life had mishandled a policyholder's pension payments after it bought the closed business operations from Tomorrow at the end of 2007.

A Windsor Life spokeswoman said that the payment delay that Stewart's client experienced was "totally unacceptable".

She said, "In this case the delay was highly exceptional and appears to have been caused by incorrect instructions provided by ourselves.

"However it was lengthened by periods when we were waiting for the customer's IFA to return documentation to us." She added that Windsor Life will provide appropriate compensation to the policyholder.

The embattled insurer came under heavy criticism earlier this year when pension payments dried up and telephones went unanswered following its takeover of Tomorrow.

Policyholders had been promised that they would not be affected by the transfer of ownership.