Sun Life Financial

My Father holds 3 polices with Sun Life. He very sadly died a year ago. Probate has been held up for several months because Sun Life is the only Company who has not released the funds to our Probate solicitors. Both I and the Probate solicitor have chased and chased and chased. The process has been a fiasco, with Sun Life asking several times for the same information and then not sending out the documents that we apparently need to sign and return to allow them to release the funds. They have backlogs of over 8 weeks, apparently due to a systems change back in November of last year. That’s almost 8 months ago and should have been rectified long before now to ensure that customers are not being badly affected. Every call with their very empathetic Customer Service team comes with an apology and I feel so sorry for that team, as they are really doing their very best in an intolerable situation and with seemingly little backup from the Company. I’m unsurprised to learn that staff turnover is very high. There is still no confirmation of when the funds from my Father’s accounts will be released, which has brought the whole sad Probate process to a complete halt. We can go no further because of Sun Life’s incompetence and lack of professional care. Sun Life have made a difficult time much more stressful and I would urge others reading this to use a different Company for your investments/life insurance so that, when the time comes, your relatives do not find themselves in the situation I am currently in. Whilst I have raised a formal complaint, and will write to the Ombudsman, all I really want is for them to release the money that is due without further delay. It’s just not good enough to say “no idea when the payment will be made”. My Father paid his policies for many years simply because he trusted this Company and wanted his affairs to be in order. Part of that trust is that he would have expected funds to have been paid out in a timely and professional manner. That definitely hasn’t happened!! ‘Poor show’ Sun Life!!

Very unhappy with Sun Life at the moment. Customer Service is a shambles. I twice in the last month asking for specific information ablut my pension for tax purposes and they have sent the wrong documents both times. I'm now going to get a late fine. I tried to email them and and got an automated response saying that it would take them 5 - 10 days to respond to my email. If I did my job this badly I'd be sacked. Unbelievably bad - many other pension providers are available - I suggest you use one of them!!

Absolutely useless shower of shi..s I've been trying to sort out something regarding my wife's policy for months. All I keep getting is the back office team are sending you a letter explaining everything you need. I've been told this 11 times, and no letter ever arrives. Can't talk to the back office team, apparently they do not receive phone calls! Totally useless company

I would give zero stars if possible. My late mother passed in February 2022 and had been a member with this outfit since 1977. My dad is due to get a payment from her policy. He has sent all the required information. They write back and repeatedly request the same information. They are deliberately doing this to delay payment. Its for two thousand pounds and 4 months on they are still unable to process payment. Today they send a letter requesting a copy of my parents marriage certificate " in order to process" the claim. They already have the certificate as sent twice before. Nobody answers the phone, nobody replies to emails. They constantly ask for the same information. My dad is 82 and on benefits and this money will help him. Utter disgrace. Have contacted customer services who are equally poor and send the same standard reply. Now sent this to ombudsman. My advice is dont take a policy with this firm.

Not worthy of any stars. Scammers robbers we’ve lost £7,400 having been missold a life insurance policy. Should have paid out £16.800 plus bonuses upon first death. It suddenly dropped to £6720 even though we have paid in more than this amount, and if we stopped payments we would loose everything. Financial ombudsman more than useless and took their side. So we’ve decided to cut our loses and stop payments. . How is this right and fair in this day and age not one person has EVER answered this question not even the ombudsman. So please beware

Requested to take pension as a lump sum in June. It is now end of Sept and still no sign of money. Have jumped through every hoop that they have put in front of me and every time they have moved the goalposts do not even contemplate doing business with this company

My mother passed away in December and I instructed a solicitor to inform all banks and policies as I was finding it hard, this was the first week of January a copy of death certificate was sent at this time. I was told that they could not find the said policy. After chasing them for a number of weeks someone was finally able to find it. I was then told that the way in which I informed them of the death was not the correct way. Which if they have a policy is fair, what’s not fair is waiting 2 months to receive the paperwork that was needed for me to inform them properly. They say they prioritise payments over other queries and that they aim to pay in 5-10 working days.. but now I have completed and returned the forms, they are saying they are still working on payments from December! Funniest thing is when I initially called in January they were working on a backlog from November absolute joke of a company. I won’t even start about the gold times! It’s unfair for a company to treat people like this especially when going through such difficult times as it is. At this point anger has passed I would just like for it to be sorted

Terrible service, I would give them zero stars if possible. They have kept me waiting 6 months for my pension despite receiving all requested papers on time. They never answer phone or reply by email. In contrast, I had another pension with Standard Life, who dealt with everything promptly and on time.

Terrible company. The UK one said they will take 2-3 weeks to give my mother her urgent retirement fund. It's been 6 weeks and still nothing - they don't even answer their phones. Over 30mins waiting time, unhelpful reps on the phone. Still nothing and its made an elderly woman ill - how ironic. I highly don't recommend. Stay away if you want to keep your health, money and sanity !!!!!!!

Chasing an enquiry for a clients pension policy since December 21! We are now nearly in May 22 and it’s excuse after excuse about they have a new system and are experiencing problems. This system is now at least 5 months old. But this point you would think they would be organised and get a grip. This is a simple request that is common practice and still I am chasing. Disgraceful. Reported to financial ombudsman to now intervene