Personal pensions attracted the most new complaints to the Financial Ombudsman out of all retirement products in the second quarter, new statistics show.

The Financial Ombudsman Service’s figures for the three months to September show there were 381 complaints about personal pensions in the second quarter. This was up on the 330 complaints in the first quarter, and saw personal pensions go up one place to 18th on the overall list.

A quarter of the personal pension complaints were resolved in favour of the consumer, the same percentage as in the first quarter.

SIPPs were the cause of 176 new complaints, up from 132 in the first quarter and rising two places to 36th on the list overall. Annuities were the next retirement product with 125 complaints, up from 120 in Q1 but down six places to 49th on the list.

State earnings-related pensions and occupational pension transfers and opt outs were 50th and 57th on the list, with 115 and 88 complaints, respectively.

SIPPs had the highest percentage of claims resolved in favour of the consumer, at 51 per cent. SERPs had the lowest at 2 per cent.

The 71-product list was again topped by payment protection insurance, which attracted 115,247 complaints. This was down on the 132,152 complaints received in the first quarter. Sixty-one per cent of these claims were resolved in the consumer’s favour.

The Ombudsman received 142,717 new complaints across all named products, down from 158,367 in the first quarter. Complaints resolved in the consumer’s favour fell from 69 per cent in the three months to June to 55 per cent last quarter.

Share Story: