Phoenix Life has moved to justify its high volume of complaints against it, saying it is due to “its large number of customers and a fairly complex suite of legacy products".
The closed book life provider ranks third in complaints received by the Financial Ombudsman Service (Fos) during the first six months of the year, with 141 cases.
The provider is only surpassed in the Fos list by Aviva Life and Pensions, which received 147 complaints in the period, and Prudential, with 261 claims.
At the end of June, Phoenix Life had 6.1m policyholders and £75bn in assets under management.
A spokesperson for the company said that it is difficult to reduce the number of total claims when the company is as big as Phoenix Life.
She said, however, the provider is more focused in the overturn rate of these claims – the number of cases where Fos disagrees with Phoenix Life’s complaint handling.
The overturn rate for Phoenix Life and Phoenix Life Assurance combined is 16 per cent for the first six months of the year, which is the provider’s “best ever recorded result since Fos began publishing complaint performance data in 2009”, she said.
With 69 cases, Phoenix Life Assurance ranks 15 in the Fos list of the most complained providers.
Kusal Ariyawansa, a chartered financial planner at Manchester-based Appleton Gerrard, said that “the number of customers is not really an excuse to have bad service”.
He compared the provider with big retail chains such as John Lewis.
He said: “They have lots of customers, but they give a very good service. That is not an excuse that they can really use.”
Complaints again Phoenix Life have been on a downward trend after the company faced criticism. The latest figure of 147 complaints during the first six months of this year compare to 248 cases registered with Fos against the company at the end of June 2015.
maria.espadinha@ft.com
