Standard Life UK Reviews 

I have a Standard Life offshore bond. I have had it for 20 years, and have been regretting it for most of that time. Finally I am writing about it. These are the reasons I strongly recommend you don't use this company.

i) Limited range of funds. They do have a lot of funds to choose from, but invariably when you look for funds recommended on the internet, they are not available from SL
ii) When you want to move funds, it takes over two weeks for Standard Life administration to do it. Imagine how that would affect the value of your holdings in the event of a market crash
iii) When I ask to withdraw money, I am told that I have to have certified documents, as proof for money laundering purposes. Certification can cost £50 per document. The money has been invested for 20 years and administered by Standard Life. How can it possibly be money laundering? It is the responsibility of a financial institution to check that money coming in has come from a valid source - not that of the sending company, particularly when the money has been there for many years
iv) The annual administration costs for Standard Life are high
v) The fund checker provided by SL is really poor. For instance you can list funds by order of performance, but when you then want to look at, say, charges and click on that tab the list switches to alphabetical order. you have lost the fund you were looking at
v) It is not possible to move administrator without cashing in the bond and incurring tax, so be very careful when you choose a product such as this (from any company). You cannot move, and could be stuck with a company like Standard Life as I am
vi) The ratio of good reviews and bad for Standard Life is around 50/50. Canada life, Utmost, and RL360 have hugely better good to bad review ratios. I have not tried these companies but Trust Pilot ratings point the way

Please consider these things and take time to make a comparison between providers. I do not recommend Standard Life

Updating my earlier complain of the 20th ofAugust, similar to others - I I received a response from Standard Life which so far has led to nothing. The Withdrawal for my money from weeks ago, still has not come through and I am none the wiser what is going on. I do not see the point if their responding when says later there has still been no movement. I have also called their customer complaints and same story. It is very concerning...
I am not sure what is going on at standard life pensions but it sure feels odd and is making me anxious.
Withdrawals from the tax free portion of my pension have gone from taking 3/4 days to taking 10 days and now it's making much longer and more concerning is that 2 days ago it allowed me process a new withdrawal (which you can't do when another one is in process) and the first one still hasn't come through.
I am up at night worrying what is going on and what it could end up becoming....

I have not been satisfied with this trading platform. Ten of Ten offers a more convenient trading service and a more straightforward withdrawal process.

SL have dealt with my pension and kept it simple, there is a personable person at the end of the phone, but what I also found great was their messaging service 😀 good work SL

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!! DO NOT USE THEM!!!!
I have been trying to move my previous job pension into my SL consolidated pension pot. They made a mistake with my name, which I already highlighted and sent an email from both providers. I have email SL every week. The request is over 8 weeks old. They have not ratified their mistake, they have not acknowledge their mistake. My money is still on hold and not moving anywhere. Until now I liked the pension. After this TERRIBLE experience, I'm changing my pension provider IMMEDITALY!

Its been 3 months since I asked standard life to take the money from my account after I mistakenly drew it all out and went to my bank account so got in touch with them to have it returned, they were happy to do this for me as I have health problems, 3 months on and still waiting for it to be returned to standard life, they keep fobbing me off everytime, i call them by either blocking me or leaving me a message saying they called me this morning and no need to call as they will call back ( total lies) im one of the most honest gentlemen going and I expect it in return but not getting it back. I called them this morning to ask if there's any news of it being sorted but getting same answer so said I will cancel standard life and can you please return it all to my bank account, just wait for the email that may never arrive, im 69 yrs old and health not great, can't help thinking do standard life want me to die so my money is with them and my benifishery gets nothing, I should have just opened a savings account somewhere instead of having it returned to standard life totally fed up with them!

I took out a pension plan some time in the 1980's before online technology , all my correspondence since then has been via post.
I recently tried to set up an online account which failed , I phoned the next day and answered all questions relating to account set up and got a link to my mobile phone , I tried to register but the computer said "no" .
I looked on trustpilot and was shocked to see so many one star complaints and decided I was going to have to fight to get my money back off them.
I rang the next day and a new link was sent which worked and I successfully open an online account.
I was told that the app would enable me to drawdown my 25% tax free sum , so I requested the drawdown using the app ( lots of questions ) .
they said they might be writing to me to request additional proof of identity .
they never wrote to me but the drawdown amount was sent to my bank account in under a week , no message that it was being sent , no communication at all , as it seems the way these days .
I was expecting ten rounds of fighting and frustration as previous pension companies have gone out of their way to make the process difficult.
so in this case we'll done standard life .

Just transferred from phoenix to standard life, the process was smooth and straightforward, setting up an online account was easy and the online account is clear and easy to navigate

Als Student der Wirtschaftsinformatik habe ich kurz nach der Millenniumwende eine kapitalgebundene Lebensversicherung mit Berufsunfähigkeitskomponente inkl. Airbag abgeschlossen. Der erfahrene MLP Berater hat mit mir schon damals die richtige Kombination aus höheren Anteilen (Partizipation) am Kapitalmarkt vorgeschlagen, welches die Standard-Life als britische Lebensversicherung bietet. Fünf Jahre nach Abschluss der Police, bin ich berufsunfähig geworden.
Nach Einreichen der Gesundheitsdaten an die Versicherung, hat es ca. drei Monate bis zur Leistungszusage (BU) gedauert.
Nach nun 17 Jahren der BU-Zusage (2009) arbeite ich bei einem staatlichen Transportunternehmen im Service und somit nicht im akademischen Bereich.
Auch hier zahlt die SL via geringerem Gehalt und Wechsel / bzw. Senkung des Berufsniveaus weiter!
Jedes Jahr bekomme ich die Perfomancedaten meines Depots und freue mich über die überdurchschnittlichen Renditen erreicht durch die Anlageexperten aus Edinburgh (Standard-Life).
I can say only one: Brilliant !

I was informed my transfer could take up to 4 weeks but it was completed without any issues in just a few days.

Superb service adding other pensions to my account. Easy to use app clear timely communication and transactions completed swiftly

Smooth and efficient, friendly staff all completed on a phone call.

Set up a SIPP 3 weeks ago not heard a thing since I’ve phoned up 3 time within the space of a week to be told it’s being processed and would be done by the 10th August so I checked on the 10th of August and still nothing

If there was a zero that’s what I would have chosen. Was advised by phoenix to transfer to Standard Life & I wanted to take a tax free draw down , I’m still waiting 2 months later for pay out . My first paperwork work from them had my wrong plan number on which meant I kept failing security questions , when you do get through the staff aren’t helpful, at all . They keep saying they don’t know why my payment isn’t being processed , feel like they are just delaying payment. My advice would not to put your hard earned cash with Standard Life .

Standard life returned money from my pension to an ex-employer even though there was an active dispute over an alleged overpayment. Disgusted with my experience to be honest.

Staff and service made it so easy and secure to transfer my pensions into one pot, thank you x

Very easy to transfer other pension pots to standard life pension pot on line…Using the app..

Complaint still unanswered. Despite the response from Standard life, it's been a couple of days and yet despite being told someone will investigate and I should call them. This goes to show poor governance. I really cannot recommend this company and will be looking for someone else to invest my future hou funds from the recent sell if mh house. Not willing to give this company any more chances especially handing over such a significant amount. Complaint x2 remains unresolved.

Completely unhelpful and dispassionate re an end of life cash in. No sympathy regarding timeliness and consequently max tax deducted and cannot now recover

From moment we called to delivery of monies absolutely excellent.