Insurance giant Aviva has been ordered to pay compensation to one of its customers following the cut-off of his pension contributions.

The company’s life and pensions arm has been penalised by the Financial Ombudsman Service following a complaint from a pension holder.

According to a Financial Times report, “Mr D” saw his monthly direct debit contributions cancelled back in December 2012 without being notified. Aviva reportedly claimed that it had received an instruction from Mr D’s bank to cancel the transactions – but did not inform him about the change.

It wasn’t until February 2015 that Mr D realised that the contributions had been stopped – meaning he missed out on 27 monthly contributions, as well as tax relief and investment growth. He then made a complaint to Aviva in June of the same year with the insurer stating it was reasonable for him to have been aware of the end of the contributions based on his statement in January 2013. As such they agreed to only pay for three months of missed premiums – from December 2012-February 2013.

However, Mr D pursued the matter with the Financial Ombudsman Service with Ombudsman Benjamin Taylor ruling in Mr D’s favour while simultaneously stating it would not be fair to hold Aviva responsible for all missed contributions.

It was determined that he should have been aware of the cut off by July 2013 when he received a bi-annual statement. As such, Aviva was told to figure out the loss of pension contributions for eight months from December 2012-July 2013 and ordered to pay £200 (C$334) for the “trouble and upset” from the error.


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