Pensions are a stash of cash that people rely on to live after they retire. However, some pension providers are better when it comes to the service you can expect. New research from industry experts reveals which pension providers were most efficient in providing information across the nation in 2018. Pension advice specialists, Portafina, has today published its 2018 league table of pension provider service times.
Pension news: Best and WORST UK pensions scheme revealed - are you missing out?
The annual list benchmarks the time taken by different pension schemes to provide the basic information necessary to advise clients on areas like the pension freedoms.
The analysis covers 11,431 requests for information made by Portafina on behalf of 5,523 new clients to over 650 different defined contribution (DC) and defined benefit (DB) pension scheme providers and scheme administrators.
This year sees DB scheme providers continuing to improve their response time and closing the gap on the fastest DC scheme providers.
However, those at the bottom of the table are worryingly taking even longer to provide basic information.
The two fastest DC scheme providers of 2018, Hargreaves Lansdown and Canada Life, were also in the top five in 2017’s league tables, showing great consistency in the service they are providing. The fastest DB scheme provider was Legal & General.
Shockingly, the slowest DB scheme providers’ performance is best measured in months rather than weeks, with Royal Mail Pension taking an average of 22 weeks to provide information (five months), 12 weeks slower than their 2017 performance, compared to just one and a half weeks for top performer Legal & General. Once again, the bottom of table is dominated by local council schemes.
Pension news: Best and WORST UK pensions scheme revealed -
