Abbey Life under fire over "farcical" service

Money Management can reveal that John Stewart, of PMI Independent Financial Advisers, sent a letter of authority and a request for retirement information to the company on 1 April 2009 but only received the details on 29 May, after six separate follow up attempts.

Stewart was told by the firm that it could not send his client's plan via fax or email and when he tried to register a complaint, was informed that independent financial advisers were unable to do so.

"The whole point in sending a letter of authorisation is so that I can represent the interests of the client," said Stewart.

"The fact that they did not let me make a complaint because I was not the policyholder is pathetic."

Abbey Life, which is owned by Deutsche Bank, outsourced the administration duties for its 1.1m policyholders to Capita in November 2008, in a deal worth £130m over 10 years.

At the time of the deal, Neil Tointon, director at Abbey Life, said that Capita was chosen "to maintain the quality and dependability of our services to customers."

A spokeswoman for parent company Deutsche Bank said that the confusion had arisen as the client's policy term had ended and an annuity was automatically purchased on his behalf by Abbey Life, but the company had not received the final questionnaire in order to start making payments.

Deutsche Bank stated that a breakdown in communication between the client and his IFA had caused further delay, as the intermediary was requesting information on a policy that had already matured, which left Abbey Life unsure of what to provide.

It clarified that all correspondence was recorded and that Abbey Life has a system in place to allow for what it calls "escalation", maintaining that customers and financial representatives of customers were entitled to lodge complaints.

gareth.shaw@ft.com