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Scottish Widows: Pension reviews

Name: Pension
Rating: 1.24 (66 reviews)

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1.14

Based on 66 reviews, last reviewed 31st Aug 2025

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

300% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

4 star

3 star

2 star

94%

Latest highest rating:

5

Great customer and digital services Switched all my pensions to my workplace pension with Scottish Widows. Such a smooth process, I was kept well informed throughout. Their app is great,... Read more Reviewed on: 12th January 2022

Latest lowest rating:

1

58% loss in Scottish Widow's P.ension I have lost 58% of the value of my Scottish Widows Pension in the last 5 years, and in writing Scottish Widows have advised they see no issue with the... Read more Reviewed on: 31st August 2025

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About this product

Scottish Widows pension reviews written by Smart Money People like you. For many of us, our pension is an important part of our financial future. Finding a pension provider that you can trust and rely on is a must for many people. Take a look at our Scottish Widows pension reviews to find out what life at Scottish Widows is really like. If you hold this pension, we'd love you to write an honest review here too!

Scottish Widows Pension reviews (66)

Review of the Scottish Widows, Pension:

Scottish Widows incompetency

I have been in dispute with Scottish Widows since 2020 over the extremely poor performance and management of the company Pension fund in relation to other pensions over a similar period. If you have a Company pension scheme with Scottish Widows, I strongly suggest you ask some questions on the performance, carry out a performance review plus administration charges soon. To Give you an idea, my pension pot bombed by nearly £20k in 2 years. From experience, the pension pot is moved to a safer “lifestyle” policy, these are a “bonds” based investment which have also bombed. Scottish Widows, when you look into the scheme are “Advisors, Administrators ” and Trustees”. (How that works I do not know) all taking a fee from your pension pot one assumes. Scottish Widows will not reveal what these charges are which depletes your pension pot. Be assured your pension needs to perform well, it will not be long before Pensions are means tested. There is a Scottish Widows Complaints Platform set up on Facebook which highlights issues others have had and some guidance. Do not be “fobbed off” by “it’s the markets” Reviewed on: 12th February 2025

Stay away from this company.

I have moved back to Spain from the UK. Since November 2022 I have been trying to cash in both my pension plans. It has been a string of calls (since calling from Spain the calls turned out to be very expensive), emails, translations of documents (again, expensive) and on some occasions a long wait before getting a reply. I have received a form yesterday to fill in, which will finally allow me to cash in my pension plans. However, when I got to the section where you fill in your phone number, it won´t accept it, as it is a Spanish and not a UK mobile number. System is set up to serve only individuals who are resident in the UK. The form expires in 30 days. Today, I had to sent again an email chasing this matter. I am hoping that they respond before the deadline. I do not recommend this company at all!!! Reviewed on: 12th July 2023

Absolutely guarantee your pension money will be lost with scam widows.

If your company is with scam Scottish Widows pension fund, you will be guarantee to work till the day you die. There will be no happy retirement for you. Reviewed on: 23rd June 2023

Scandalous Pension Protector Fund Series 3

How can a company lose so much of their customers' money in a so called Pension 'Protector'? They must be incompetent. Wish I'd never heard of Scottish Widows, avoid! The website is very user unfriendly and gives you scant information on how your funds are doing, although I can tell from my ever decreasing pension balance. Sort yourselves out Scottish Widows, you are supposed to grow your clients' money, not lose it! Reviewed on: 20th April 2023

Amazingly poor performance

I get that the markets have been less than optimal over the past two years, however SW have completely amazed me with their inability to adapt as other providers have (I have other pots that have not been as bad as these guys). By bad, I mean I have been putting over 3k/month into the pension over the past two years and basically that 3k/month has pretty much been eaten up by the incompetent monster. Shockingly bad, however no choice as this is a company scheme. Actually working out how to ditch them. Reviewed on: 16th April 2023

dreadful

i have been trying to sort my pension out now for 6 months. date of retirement was 18th march. and because of massive problems with scottish widows. have not received my pension. plus it looks like it could be another couple of months before receiving. i have been on phone every week for two hours at a time. nobody knows what the other has done. i was assured by assistants. i would be kept in touch. and haven’t. i moved another policy to them. and they have been sitting on my money for two months. on my interest. i want to be compensated Reviewed on: 3rd April 2023

Robbing over payed investors

Lost 40K from April 2021 till today, All my hard work which I could off invested better and I haven’t got degrees in business like these muppets. If an investment is not performing why keep throwing money into it . Reviewed on: 6th March 2023

Very poor pension fund performance

Lost 25% of my pension fund over the last 3 years, and it's still going down even though all of my other pensions are now recovering. I didn't have any choice in using Scottish Widows (company pension), would certainly not recommend them to anyone Reviewed on: 1st March 2023

Pretty useless

FTSE at a record high very recently, and my pension has dropped about 9 grand over the last 6 months ... Very poor performance by Scottish Widows .. Pension struggles to go up as stock market rises, then drops like a ton of bricks when the market falls a little .. Very disappointed !!! Reviewed on: 24th February 2023

being fleeced

fund constantly dropping going to have to draw it out before it is worthless Reviewed on: 24th February 2023

Very disappointed

Have lost more than 20 per cent of my savings in the so called 'Pension Protector' fund - I can't think of a worse name for a fund. Reviewed on: 21st February 2023

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