L&G under fire for poor adviser communications

Robert Jackson, personal financial planner for Jackson Financial Planning, and Steve Osbiston, adviser at Michael Robinson Associates, cited examples of poor telephone and online service for advisers from the provider.

They claimed that, despite L&G's online contact system launch, which aims to discuss pension or investment cases and reply in 48 hours, in instances where their clients need a more immediate answer or interaction, the advisers had been left to "circumvent" what they have called a "problematic" phone service.

Mr Jackson said: "L&G's online contact system for adviser firms to discuss pension or investment case issues aims to reply in 48 hours.

I can only assume that they wish to be the next direct only provider, if not by desire, then by default.  Robert Jackson

"Quite often though an immediate answer is required, so this simply doesn’t work all the time.  A recent requirement for such an answer caused us to have to circumvent this system and ring the Protection Team in order to make initial contact with a human being, and then go through numerous transfers between various departments.

"After 40 minutes and 5 different individuals we were finally asked what we wanted, which was simply to determine whether they had received some ID and transferred our clients pension fund to their new and more communicative provider."

However, he said despite finally getting through, he was not able to get an "immediate reply". Instead, he claims he was told "the client could call them and they would speak to him.

"Nobody at Legal and General could understand that the client has appointed us to sort this out for him, his IFA.

"When a response came, it was by telephone and the operator's opening words were 'I thought I would ring and talk to you as it is more convenient'."

According to Mr Osbiston, L&G have moved from a phone based support service for IFAs and customers to one that has to be initiated by email with a 48-hour response time for all pension administration matters.

However, according to Mr Osbiston: "It is no longer possible to have a five-minute conversation with an administrator, even about the most simplest of matters. 

"L&G also moved its complaints service, so it has to commence in writing, which might actually breach FCA rules about making complaints, which should offer policyholders and IFA’s the opportunity to make a verbal complaint as well as a written one."

Mr Osbiston explained: "We had an instance recently when a client had been given the wrong values on their policy after making a fund switch.

"It wasn’t until we registered a complaint by email L&G started to investigate the matter properly. Having issued a second set of incorrect values, which we had to request by email, they checked the figures they had issued to the client.

"The complaint was initially dealt with in writing and was still wrong, but once we had something in writing we had a telephone number and a name to contact."

According to a spokesman for Legal & General Insurance, there have been some times when the Hub was not available, but they said this was minimal.

The spokesman said: "We always encourage advisers in supporting their customers to understand the registration process for them to access their secure Hub, or even assist them in the process.

Copies of statements are no longer sent automatically to advisers on the policy anniversary date as they are not always seeing their clients at that time. L&G spokesman

"We know there have been some times when the Hub has been unavailable but these have been minimal. Had this occurred at this particular time, the customer may not have been able to access the system."

Meanwhile, another adviser, commenting on a story in FTAdviser, stated: "L&G has no pension product that facilitates adviser charging, doesn't answer the telephone, doesn't send advisers statements, so far as IFAs are concerned, they are history. Robo-advice is probably its best bet for survival."

It is true there is no pension product which facilitates adviser charging. The L&G spokesman explained: "In 2013 as part of the RDR environment, we owned Suffolk Life and Cofunds who between them had five types of individual pensions which all paid an adviser charge.

"Our decision then was to focus on our Investment Bond and ensure there was an adviser charge on that for IFAs, so we could offer a bond and five pensions to the IFA market, with an adviser charge post RDR.

"However, we have since sold Suffolk Life and Cofunds and therefore, do not currently have an individual pension with an adviser charge."

Additionally, the spokesman commented: "Copies of statements are no longer sent automatically to advisers on the policy anniversary date as they are not always seeing their clients at that time, so the copy statement was ‘out of date’ by the time they did meet. An adviser can now request an up to date statement online when they need one."

But even when clients have been trying to use the new system online, there have been issues with registration, depending on how the client is seeking to register, according to Mr Jackson.

Mr Jackson said: "A recent protection case has also resulted in L&G refusing to allow us to assist our client with registering to confirm their details.

"My client, a tech-savvy managing director with an iPhone, was unable to access the system. We were told there was a technical issue when investigating this for him. When he still couldn’t access the system, we checked again and were told he was probably not very computer literate, or words to that effect, and there was never a system issue."

The L&G spokesman said: "Normally, the client would complete the process fully on his iPhone and view his documentation form the same device. But an adviser is not permitted to do it all for the customer, as this is not possible due to security."

Mr Jackson said while it was right for L&G to embark on a digital transformation, as this is the way the industry is going, he said it was important for L&G to "remember why clients come to see advisers in the first place.

Referring to an article written by FTAdviser, in which Mark Holweger, managing director for Legal & General Insurance spoke of the provider's drive towards digital transformation by organising hackathons and creating incubators to create online services in the organisation, Mr Jackson said: "I can only assume that they wish to be the next direct only provider, if not by desire, then by default."

simoney.kyriakou@ft.com