Advisers have listed a series of problems with pension companies, from taking up to 30 days just to review due diligence forms, through to delivering "appalling turnaround times".
Service levels, which some argued had improved during 2020, seem to have fallen over the past 12 months, making it difficult for advisers.
Tom Kean, director at Thameside Financial Planning, said: “It’s a never-ending issue for us and, having spoken to other advisers, them as well. It’s always been like this though; it just gets slightly better or slightly worse over the years.
“Having worked at a large provider in my youth, I have some kind of insight as to why this happens. Providers allocate just enough resources to the problem and juggle the inevitable negativity if that isn’t quite enough.”
Kean said although it makes everyone’s life a “misery”, it's down to costs and productivity.
“I’ve always said that working from home makes this kind of work more “sticky”, and I fear that the trend for WFH is the current culprit.”
However, Darren Cooke, chartered financial planner at Red Circle Financial Planning, said: “I am not sure where service levels improved in 2020.
“Generally, they got worse during the pandemic as companies were not prepared for home working by staff.”
Cooke said since then, it has not gotten any better, arguing that it shouldn’t matter whether staff are still working from home or back in the office.
“I don't think this is a people problem, it's a systems and IT problem,” he said.
“Where staff issues do happen, it is because they are not properly trained or don't have the knowledge and experience.
“We increasingly find that staff at legacy providers simply don't understand their own products, particularly the older plans, which often leads to incorrect information being given out.”
Cooke gave the example of one case, where there was a very old plan from the early 90s that had a quite complicated structure.
“Thankfully we did speak to the one lady who was able to explain it because she had been there that long,” he said.
“She told me she was due to retire soon so nobody else would understand these policies. She had told her boss, but he didn't care.
"He had no interest in her passing that information on to another person so they would have somebody still working there who knew how that policy worked.”
Administrators’ response
Companies involved in facilitating transfers have spoken of the sheer number of enquiries each month.
A spokesperson for Willis Towers Watson said the firm was committed to delivering the “highest standards of service to occupational pension scheme members, policy holders and clients”.
“We receive tens of thousands of enquiries every month and complete the vast majority quickly and within appropriate timescales, while providing members with accurate and up-to-date information to help them make important retirement decisions,” the spokesperson said.
