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Aviva: Pension reviews

Name: Pension
Rating: 2.02 (173 reviews)

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1.93

Based on 173 reviews, last reviewed 12th Jun 2025

50% increase in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

300% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

18%

70%

Latest highest rating:

5

Always happy to help. Always happy to help. Excellent customer service, low charges and brilliant website. Makes it a pleasure to be a customer. Reviewed on: 12th June 2025

Latest lowest rating:

1

Holding on to my pension single payment I have had a pension with Aviva for 25 years and 3 months ago I decided to pay a single premium into my pension plan March 17th 2025, I received an em... Read more Reviewed on: 31st May 2025

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Aviva Pension reviews (173)

Review of the Aviva, Pension:

Pension

Excellent customer service when I wanted a quote for my pension Reviewed on: 29th August 2023

Should be called AVOID not Aviva!

Dreadful! Doesn’t even deserve the one star I had to give them. A different story every time you call them. Been fighting now for over a month to get MY money. They make you feel like you’re not entitled and constantly quote their deadlines such as 25 working days to do a bank transfer! Ridiculous and the worst service I have ever had to endure. Avoid at all costs if you possibly can Reviewed on: 3rd August 2021

Shocking behaviour!

Absolutely disgusting company! Zero chance for contact with them, problem with transferring money to different pension provider! 3 months now battling with them! Stay far away! Reviewed on: 20th July 2021

Using every tactic to not pay me my pension

Don't know what's happening in the Aviva pension department. Usually very good. But this time they are deploying every strategy not to give me my drawdown payment. To get through is diabolical. Waiting hours.. Emails 10 days at least to respond. Told me twice they have sent relevant forms out. But haven't. So upsetting and frustrating. Reviewed on: 6th July 2021

Buyer Beware! Abysmal disgusting on your face theft of your money

I live in the USA, the land of the free. Having left the UK over fifteen years ago, I had immigrated to the UK from South Africa with high hopes of establishing a pension fund after leaving the mess that is South Africa today. I found a financial adviser who recommended a 350GBP per month fund would bear fruit at age sixty-five. It was then a Norwich pension. I embarked on this ambitious scheme. Determined to succeed, and In my first two years, I lived on the back seat of an Austin Maestro at services areas on the motorway to save up on the deposit for our tiny house in Maidstone. I was a contract computer engineer, and a few years later, I started my engineering and materials handling company. By 2005, I had 57 million GBP in potential business on my books when my supplier was bought out in the USA by a bigot who wanted to trade directly with the EU. He fired all the staff and closed the business, and transferred assets to another entity to rename that and resurrect the company as a new entity without obligations or contracts, including mine. After suffering extreme stress, I collapsed in my office. After enduring the customary NHS incompetent run around, I landed on an Operating table in St Thomas, suffering a completely blocked right-hand coronary. I died twice that day. I applied to Norwich to have the Pension holiday to allow me to convalesce without the enormous monthly financial burden. Norwich sent me a pension statement of my investment value one that i thought had been designed to function at minimum risk, and for the first time, I found out what it was actually worth... as I lay in my bed recovering from heart surgery. Where I had died twice... Shock and awe! One-third of what I had paid in, so I immediately stopped throwing good money after bad. I froze the pension that was created with post-tax personal income payments; my 13000.00 GBP investment was worth 6000.00, and Norwich went dark, with no correspondence or communication of any sort. I had other things to focus on. Now came Aviva, who took over and began to rewrite the rules, and the pension pot diminished further and for a time seemed to vanish however, I was able to trace it because I retained every piece of paper and with the help of pension tracing websites and the services of a professional pensions legal advisor, I was able to resurrect this skillfully hidden money. Now I am Sixty Five. The retirement pot has earned minus figures. I don't live in the UK, and you threaten that if I move or withdraw, my money there will be a 25% Tax charge on already taxed money that is worth less than what I paid in and, to add to the misery, will be taxed here in the USA when it arrives - tell me then, what or who is a pension supposed to benefit? So why am I telling you this personal story? My message shows you a small snapshot of the man you are trying to rob. I am a war veteran, a veteran of poverty and vagrancy at twelve years of age. I have owned several successful businesses on three continents and successfully defended and fought litigation Pro Se' in the UK and the Federal Court in the USA. It is a little advice that you should do your research before trying to bully one who has been meeting challenges since he was a one-year-old, www.le-guttersnipe.com I am an autodidact and will find a way no matter how stupid you think I am. As I awoke yesterday at three AM, Jesus came to me in my twilight waking dreams and mentioned that I should be grateful that he warned me to stop the payments all those years ago. I can only imagine the hell I would be enduring had this been an entire paid-up pension fund today. Reviewed on: 30th June 2021

Delays causing financial hardship

near imposible to contact Aviva, two hour telephone waits are usual not an exception. Poor staff training and failure in systems to send out documentation that has been promised. Delays Delays and no empathy for customers at this terrible time. I could go on but this has affected the state of my mental health. Please Please choice a company that values customer services and invests in their phone system, it and staff training . Reviewed on: 9th June 2021

They try ti keep my money

Be careful when you ask to transfer your pension to another provider they refuse asking for many document like DOB certificate and etc... You need to call them many time by phone and still invent excuses to not transfer your money!!! Stay away!!! Reviewed on: 31st May 2021

Abysmal customer service

Have just started to communicate with Aviva to access my pension. Have called free phone numbers but it can take many attempts to actually join a queue. More often than not you are told to ring back later. Once actually in the queue the long wait begins. Just short of an hour today. Once through, the staff are reasonable although I did not receive the letter I was supposed to have been sent after my first call. I was then told that release of money once I have returned appropriate information will be up to twenty days! There is clearly a lack of resource and archaic systems within this company. Am very disappointed. Reviewed on: 4th May 2021

Absolute rubbish

I’ve been paying money in for 30 years and last year they took more money away from me than I paid in. Would not recommend a pension with Aviva Reviewed on: 27th April 2021

Dire customer service. Truly desperate

Weeks go by before they reply to emails. Even then they're following a script and haven't got a clue. Honestly put your money elsewhere. I'm stuck with this lot as my employer insists on them but if you have the choice, anywhere is better than here. Reviewed on: 20th April 2021

Shocking service when requesting pension lump sum payment

I have been trying since last September to take my pension as a lump sum. They sent me the same initial pack 3 times, I had various phone calls which produced nothing, finally I was told I had to have a long detailed conversation with an Aviva agent before I could be sent the necessary form to take my pension - and then when I eventually received the form and returned it in January, the money did not arrive. I am still chasing weekly and am just told each time that they will escalate it - I think they need to check the meaning of the word escalate. I had taken lump sums before Aviva took over Friends Provident, who were so much more efficient. If you are requiring your pension lump sum by a certain date, you will be in trouble if you invest with this company. The Ombudsman needs to take action and get this useless company to sort themselves out pronto. Reviewed on: 7th April 2021

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