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Categories: Personal Pensions| TCF
Topics: Standard Life| IFA
An IFA has claimed Standard Life removed him from his client’s policies without instruction.
Mike Inkley, director of advice firm Sanderson Law, said his client found what she believed was a statement for an old savings plan with Standard Life in her paperwork in 2009.
The client telephoned Standard Life for a valuation of the policy and was asked by a staff member if she wanted to "involve her IFA" in the matter.
She did not think it was necessary to ask Inkley for advice as she only wanted to release the money from the policy.
She later found Standard Life had removed Inkley from all three of her SL policies, the adviser claimed.
Inkley also claimed the insurer gave his client poor advice on her policy, which turned out to be a personal pension.
Standard Life allowed her to cash the pension, but due to her other pension savings, she was not eligible for trivial commutation and so had in fact received an unauthorised payment, he said.
Inkley returned the money to Standard Life and reinstated the pension to avoid a tax charge on his client's savings.
A spokesperson for Standard Life said: "As part of Standard Life's robust protocol when a client calls to discuss their product needs we ask if they have sought financial advice and always direct them to speak to their financial adviser if they have one.
"In all conversations with customers, we refer them to the adviser on our records.
"If a customer tells us they no longer deal with that adviser we ask them if they have another. If after being removed the IFA re-establishes the relationship with a client we will ensure they are added back on the books."
Last week, advisers were angered when the insurer sent out letters to clients asking them to update their adviser details and offering them entry to a prize draw.
Some advisers feared Standard Life was incentivizing clients to remove their IFAs from their policies.
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How many cases?
How many instances have we heard of this happening with Standard Life and once again the 'template' response is given. Why don't you be honest Standard and admit you have a agenda to deal direct with clients of IFA's
Posted by: david picker
How the mighty have fallen
Oh, are they desperate. Sounds like they are positioning themselves for direct to consumer advice model. No doubt they can earn lots from keeping what they should be paying their introducers.
Posted by: Ron Jones
Parasites
This coincides nicely with Standard Life having just employed 250 new direct sales staff
Posted by: Dr D
funny?
I recently placed business with Standard. They sent everything direct to the "client" at her nursing home; she does not have mental capacity- who was not the actual client, it was the trustees who were the client. So very confidential information was revealed to her carers! Disgraceful. We the IFAs were cut out completely
Posted by: A Souls
Stupid Standard
....how extraordinary and short sighted. Haven’t they learnt you should never bite the hand that feeds you? Of course what Standard Life wants is for us to have the impression of it being the best supporters of IFA's, but what they are really doing behind the scenes is the complete opposite. They lure in our clients in on the pretence on a silly but fairly innocuous looking prize draw to win the latest piece of trendy 'must have'(e.g. the IPAD2)or a few subtly worded questions when a client calls in to change his/her address or obtain a valuation and before you can say 'standardlife', the client is then switched to their direct side and no further information is provided to us - there, so simply done and thank you ever so much 'Mr IFA' for another future customer to target after the RDR plus a few bob saved in stopping your renewal on this client in the meantime. Perhaps the people they employ in their call centres get targets and incentives to switch our clients to a 'direct' basis, I don’t know; I do understand however that it is possible for a client to obtain a transcript between the call centre and them to see (in print) what was said and by whom - just as long as you know what date and time the call took place. Just how they are able to switch our clients to their 'direct' side without going through what we have to go through when we want to take over a policy of adviser smacks of nothing short of double standards and is frankly scandalous! Some will doubtless say we need to look after our clients more - perhaps we should, just to stop them falling into the clutches of these parasites! They really must think the IFA community are so stupid as to not realise what their game is here but ladies and gentlemen, let's not get angry any more - let's just get even by giving them no more business. Simples!
Posted by: Alex Gordon
Forget the life offices
Maybe the penny is beginning to drop. No life office is concerned for the welfare of IFAs. Their only concern is getting the business, and they will stoop to any tactic to grab it. So you must set up your business plan on the basis that life offices (as we knew them) don't exist. Thats what real independence means. Now how does the future look?
Posted by: Green Eyed Monster
Stanadard Life
I had 3 case in the space of a week of clients "requesting" for me to no longer be their adviser. None of these clients requested this from Standard Life they had just completed a form sent to them by Standard Life. I had to complete new agency letters. I assume we can claim against Standard Life for our time wasted in re-instating long-term clients?
Posted by: Graham Nicholls (NBL)
Trust Standard Life? I should cocoa!
I worked for Standard Life in the 70s and knew their contracts well. Endowment policies used to have an IMO (Investment Maturity Option) that allowed the policy to be continued as a qualifying policy after maturity, in return for a peppercorn premium. About three months before they were demutualising a client (I was an IFA by then) had a policy due to mature and the maturity pack made no mention of an IMO but I knew that at the time the policy was started it was a "no-cost" option. I was recommending that the client kept the policy (and therefore his membership of Standard Life) until he had received shares and then to cash in what would have been by then an investment bond. I asked Standard Life to re-issue the maturity pack and to include IMO information. Sure, they re-issued the pack but guess what - no IMO details. So I asked again and again no IMO stuff. By now maturity was imminent and I was concerned that the client would miss the opportunity of extending his membership as far as the demutualisation. It was only when I wrote to BBC's Moneybox with a copy to Standard Life's CEO and a threat to alert the Press and attend the AGM to raise the matter that at the very last minute the correct paperwork appeared. Trust Standard Life? No way, and nothing I've witnessed from any other insurer makes me think that they are unique in their approach.
Posted by: Kim Lee
no surprise
How do they get away with it, If an ifa treated there customers like this the FSA would invoke the TCF rule, what a contradiction when SL can treat ifa's in this way, are ifa's not there customers, whatever happened to loyalty and fair play.....I hope they get what they deserve
Posted by: Geoff
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Standard Life
A familiar story - we received confirmation from Standard Life that we were no longer advisers for a client and the client had no idea whatsoever. Our client had to reappoint us and even then Standard Life had no idea why they had removed us in the first place!
Posted by: Gavin O'Neill