Are we heading towards a pension mis-selling crisis? Ombudsman expects 3000 EXTRA claims than normal!

Is the full scale of the pension mis-selling about to be revealed?

The Financial Ombudsman Service has revised the number of cases it expects to handle that involve pensions and investments from 13,100 to 16,000 for the 2017/2018 period, an increase of 22%.

While the Ombudsman has NOT stated any singular or particular reason for the rise in expecting claims, it can be seen from recently released statistics from the FOS that the recent spike in complaints from October through December appears to have been generated by complaints about SIPPs – Self Invested Personal Pensions.

The SIPP investments problem

It’s in this area, that Spencer Churchill Claims Advice specialises – cases where clients have been advised swap their pension(s) into a SIPP, and then invest in high-risk, often unregulated investments without being fully informed of the risks presented, or being assessed to see if they are suitable for such risks.

We’ve certainly seen an increase over the last year, and we’ve no doubt this is being experienced by official bodies such as the FSCS and FOS.

The FOS figures for the last quarter of 2016 show an 18% increase in complaints relating to SIPPs from the previous quarter, while the FSCS is said to be levying the life and pensions sector to record levels next year too!

But does these increases in complaints show the true scale of pension mis-selling? We think not, as most people are unaware they have a mis-sold pension, right up until the moment that one of their investments goes into liquidation, which can be months or years – how many more are yet to surface?

Checking your SIPP advice

If you have a SIPP, we’re sorry if we’ve worried you, but we also feel that with so much negligent advice going around about SIPPs, we think it’s better to be safe and tell you about it.

If you want to know if YOU have received negligent financial advice that’s either put your pension at risk, or accounts for a loss on your pension that’s already occurred, you can contact Spencer Churchill Claims Advice for a FREE initial assessment of your pension advice, with NO obligation to continue through to a no upfront costs claim to win your retirement fund back.

Please note: you have an initial cooling off period of 14 days, if you cancel outside of this period you may be charged for the work carried out and if we have already submitted your claim, which results in an offer of compensation subsequently being made, we will charge our full fee as per our T&Cs – our fee is 20% + VAT – a total of 24%.