Standard Life UK Reviews 

Very dissappointing, I rang the Standard Life company about confirming cancellation and then next day , they withdraw some money in my account. I was in a big meeting and had the text messages that i was overdrawn. The Standard Life took 12,000pounds without me knowing the cancelllation didnt they do it. Its extremely heartbreaking.

Wanted to withdraw money from my pension plan. It was a very slow process with repeated assurances that it would be resolved within a time frame and then never was.

Draw down money requested 5th April. Money paid via an incorrect method 17th April was rejected by the bank & returned to Standard Life 20th April. Monies sat in a Sundry Account, c
I contacted the 27th April requesting where my money was. Money still NOT received 12th May!! No one is taking ownership to resolve. As a working person cannot get to speak to anyone after 5pm. Speak to a different person each call having to explain everything all over again. No one resolves the issue and no one calls you back when they say they will. My pension was placed with them due to previous company found guilty of pension Fraud. Now they are just as bad. Reported to the FCA & Pensions Ombudsman again !!@

If I could give 0 stars I would.

Short summary:
I requested a withdrawal from my pension on 24/04/2026. Today is 11/05/2026. This has still not even been actioned by the team after misinformation, lies and false promises.

24/04/2026:
Stated withdrawal would take 5 working days. 5 working days have come and gone, and no action on account.
01/05/2025
5 Working days have passed (close of business) Monday. Still no action after multiple online form message submissions and calls. Now told that because a contribution has been made on 30/04/2026, I have to wait up to 5 days for this to settle into the account, and as Monday 04/05/2026 was a bank holiday, this will take it to 08/05/2026.

08/05.2026:
Now told that this will not settle until 11/05/2026, even though I was categorically told this would have settled by this date.

11/05/2026
Now being informed, it's going to take an additional 5 working days to process the transaction after the 5 additional days from the processing time. Then an additional 3-5 days for the payment to land into my account. (Honestly, you couldn’t make this up!) I halted the agent and told them the previous agent had messaged me in B&W stating this would be processed and paid out today (11/05/2026).

Phone call and end of the day to state that the payment on 30/04 has not been settled into my account yet. Honestly, I could smell the utter “BS” from here.

Now on a daily callback for the comedy show that is Standard Life. I will update this review daily on how it develops toward a resolution.

Current Outcome:
At present, my recommendation is to avoid Standard Life if you want honesty and transparency when they are handling your hard-earned money. Not only do you get vague and unhelpful responses, but you also get told false promises and incorrect timescales. I would go as far as stating they have lied to me, as I have promises in black and white that have not been kept.

I would have hoped this was an isolated incident, but I’m afraid this is worse than my previous experience in Feb 2026, where my official complaint was upheld. Seems the service is only getting worse, I’m sorry to say.

Interminable difficulties trying to withdraw one of my wife's pensions from a past employer. Standard Life's system wouldn't accept her name on the joint bank account - only mine, as I'm the first-named; their coding is incompetent in this respect.

After a week of meaningless, deflective responses via online messaging we were finally told just to go ahead and they'd sort this out at the back end. - They were given a bank statement for verification.

- All seemed to progress, and a confirmation letter appeared on the portal. Luckily I downloaded and archived this, because today (11/05/26) the account had completely disappeared from the portal! - Complete with all the messages that passed to-and-fro!

For clarity... part of what has disappeared here is evidence of their mishandling the account; evidence that might otherwise be presented to the FOS! - I find this suspicious, and it certainly engenders mistrust of Standard Life.

- There has been NO contact from Standard life via email and of course we now have no way of contacting them either!

- For clarity; as we are both partially deaf, the telephone option is NOT suitable... especially as this fails to provide a record of exchanges and is only available at inconvenient times... And that's even if their system weren't (as is evidenced by many complaints from others here here) plagued with problems.

All in all I'll be glad when we manage to extract the money and will be studiously avoiding ALL standard life products in the future...

This has been an appalling experience; my wife suffers from anxiety and is very very distressed at the moment... Formal complaints WILL be made and if necessary taken to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Very good experience with Standard life, quick and easy to transafers no hassle thank you. Excellent!

Good communication and clear understanding of what action I needed to take to allow the transfer to proceed.

Poor communication between Phoenix and Standard Life, not being informed of the correct process / procedures ( had 3 different answers from members of the same team?) Still waiting for my money after nearly 5 weeks , yes “My Money” Still waiting for a call from the Supervisor / Manager from a week ago?

Very professional & friendly service

From the beginning when I first called standard life for help with my pension to the end result every one I spoke to was very understanding and helpful as I recently experienced a brain hemorage making talking a difficult process,
Everyone was patient with me and helped me get all my ducks in a row,
Many thanks Mr A Drake.

I transferred another pension to standard life and it could not have been eny earlier. One message was all I had to send. Thay said it could take between 4 and 6 weeks. It only took 2 so happy with how it was done

Promt response, so far

I am reviewing Standard Life plc (formerly Phoenix Group) for a systemic failure in group oversight. Their subsidiary, ReAssure, is currently withholding my £32,000 pension using a shameful administrative loop.

After a 10-month delay caused jointly by the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) and ReAssure, ReAssure is now claiming my Cambodian ID—which was valid when I submitted it—is now "expired." They are effectively weaponizing their own delays to block access to my funds.

CEO Andy Briggs MBE claims Standard Life is a "trusted brand" for retirement. In reality, his group is causing "foreseeable harm" to a 56-year-old customer by creating unreasonable barriers. This is a clear breach of the FCA Consumer Duty. I have rejected the FOS decision and will continue to hold Standard Life plc publicly accountable for this withholding of my money.

Went on line and done a pension transfer into standard life. It was so easy and even thou the other company said that I hadn’t gave the right information so the transfer couldn’t go through. Standard life got in contact with me via letter and told me what information was required, then the other company released my funds and it went through smoothly.

I didn’t choose Standard Life, my employer did. Having said that I have nothing but praise for them. I’ve consolidated pensions from 3 other companies into Standard Life without issue. The performance of my plan looks good even in current uncertain times. Admin fees are low too but that was a company group negotiation.

I had to give this organisation 1 star to write the review, but they are not even deservant of that. They have had my money since late march, and i have made several requests for drawdowns, both online, and on the phone. They don't want you accessing your own money basically. Ive had excuse after excuse, the latest one was a promise of a CHAPS payment, which as we all know, is a same day payment That was a week ago, and still nothing hits the account. Seriously, if anyone is reading this, i would advise you to choose a better provider, they are deliberately trying to prevent me accessing my money, with excuse after excuse. Truly awful to deal with.

Dealing with standard life Ireland. Not one reply for basic information about my policy to 5 emails . 3 phone calls just fobed off. So disappointed with their lack of interest. Time to go to the ombudsman I think.

I was referred by Reassure, the person I spoke to was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction I needed to go.

I applied to transfer a small pension and it was done in one piece of correspondence. Brilliant service 👏