Pensioners face 10-week wait for savings
SOME pension companies are forcing investors to wait as long as ten weeks before transfering their funds to an annuity provider, according to research from the Annuities Clearing House (ACH).
The group has named and shamed “The Good, the Bad and the downright Ugly” groups over delays before releasing savings, showing Windsor Life, Winterthur Life and Scottish Mutual are the biggest procrastinators over the simple transactions.
Pensioners, who already face cut-price retirements thanks to the economic meltdown face an “unacceptable risk” of losing out on the best annuity deals due to the unnecessary processing delays, the ACH said.
Worst offender Windsor life, which has over £14bn of funds under management, takes around 51 days to transfer a pension fund to an investor’s chosen annuity.
At the “Good” end of the scale, Zurich Assurance takes 18 days on average to give up the funds, Abbey Life takes 19 and Virgin Money takes around 21.