Can’t get DH’s pension he left me

[Offtowalkthedoggie]

DH passed away just over 12 months ago. Due to a lot of grief, et cetera, I didn’t really deal with sorting out the pension he had left me until July.

It’s an Aegon pension and I instructed a financial advisor after much discussion to move it to Scottish widows for me. Apparently, Aegon have lots of software issues and it’s taken until a couple of weeks ago just to get it in my name at Aegon themselves.

I am fortunate, I have a job which covers my bills, but surely it can’t take this long to transfer my deceased husband’s pension into my name. I hate to think how things would be if I actually needed to be drawing on that pension.

I’ve taken to speaking to the financial advisor every week now it just doesn’t seem to move on and there’s always an excuse. It could be earning a lot more money in Scottish widows. I feel I’m being taken for a mug somewhere but I’m not sure whom by.

i’d appreciate anyone’s thoughts on what I can do to move it on and I’d be interested to know if anyone else is having the same problem.

I've had an issue with Aegon since September, regarding moving a pension, absolutely appalling service, been contacting them weekly and not once has anyone ever contacted me back. Nothing was resolved until I raised a complaint, it took 4 weeks for them to look in to my case, The case handler did eventually call me back and awarded me £250 compensation which I have received but im still waiting for the transfer. I'd advise raising a complaint to get things moving for you.

She'd likely get an unpleasant tax bill, that's what. The OP is trying to switch from one pension provider to another, with the cash remaining in a pension. If she just takes the cash out in the form of a cheque made payable to her she has effectively taken all that cash as income in the current tax year, even if she then put it into another pension plan. These things have to be done properly.

I have a pension with Aegon, it was started many years ago with a different company and ended up with them (unfortunately). It’s finally up and running properly now, but they initially made mistake after mistake with it, and each time they tried to correct the error they made it worse.

I just had to keep phoning and emailing to get them to do anything, even their complaints department was lacking. They did eventually resolve the issues without needing the Ombudsman, but I was on the point of contacting them.

I’m so sorry that you are having this additional stress at such an awful time, I would probably go straight to the Ombudsman in your position, it’s just not good enough.

It took me a good few weeks to sort out the survivors pension left to me, by DH, with LV. 🤷‍♀️

@Boomer55 DH passed away almost 14 months ago. Due to a cock up with the NFU who wouldn’t deal with a change of name when I pension was passed from DH into my name which was wasted many months. I started the process with the second financial advisor in July last year.
I’m beginning to lose the world to live, but I am currently writing a letter of complaint to Aegon which I will be cc’ing into my financial advisor.

As an FYI, going 'Straight to the ombudsman' would be a complete waste of time, as they won't look at any complaint until you have gone through the Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure either in full, or you have been waiting for longer than 8 weeks for a response (although if there is a justifiable reason for the delay, such as they are waiting on information from a third party, TPO wouldn't act just because it's been 8 weeks).

Not picking holes, just wanted to highlight in case OP/anyone reads this thread and decides to take that course of action 😊

Yes, you’re right, thanks for correcting me🙂

It’s important to follow the correct procedures, although this sort of palaver is the last thing the poor OP needs.

I've never had any trouble with Aegon and have used them for years. I have a financial advisor but they are just as happy to deal with me. I also agree that they have some excellent funds and this might be better than moving elsewhere.

When I tried to get the portion of DsF’s pension that he’s left for my mum, it took months and months and months of battling and major paperwork back and forth. They essentially didn’t want to continue to pay the part of the pension that my mum was entitled to and wriggled as hard as they could. I got it for her in the end and rhey backdated it. So all of their wriggling was wasted. Although I suppose if they wriggle like this with everyone, people will forget, die themselves, not claim due to overwhelm etc. my mum desperately needed the income so I fought hard for her from almost immediately after he died. It was his wishes, clearly expressed on the form. Still the bastards wriggled. Very bad.

Strangely after all these months I had an email from Aegon this morning asking me why I’ve not done anything about my late husband‘s pensionand I’m hoping that having replied and expressed my complete displeasure about the fact they've not actually done anything about it when my financial advisor has been trying to sort it out since last year it may have moved things on.

but I’m not holding my breath!

Was in a similar position a few years ago and Aegon just sent me the money.

Assuming this is part of the distribution of his assets on death, the relevant tax would be IHT.

Until April 2027 pension funds are exempt from inheritance tax, but even then the usual rules will apply - transfers between husband and wife are exempt and no tax is due if the value of the estate is below the tax free threshold.

The relevant tax would be income tax, if her husband was over 75.