Complaints about self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) rose for the second time in 2017/18 in Q3 after seeing a small dip in the second quarter of the financial year, according to the Financial Ombudsman Services’ (FOS) latest statistics.
The ombudsman received 546 new SIPP complaints in Q3, upholding more than half (54%), compared to 498 new complaints in Q2 when it upheld almost half (49%). In Q1 it received 521, 50% of which were upheld.
The amount of SIPP complaints it has seen in the first three quarters of 2017/18 are significantly higher than the average 371 it saw per quarter in 2016/17.
That said, the FOS’s average uphold rate of 56% per quarter in 2016/17 was higher than the respective 54%, 50% and 49% rates seen so far in the first three quarters of this financial year.
In April, the FOS said it expected to receive 16,000 new pension and investment related cases in 2017/18.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme recently levied advisers an extra £24m due to rising numbers of SIPP claims.
In its annual review published last June, the ombudsman said a third (36%) of complaints about advisers in 2016/17 were upheld – down from 40% in the previous financial year. The majority of complaints about advisers concerned SIPPs, it explained.
Other pensions
Annuity complaints remained steady, with the FOS receiving 179 new cases in Q3 compared to 181 in Q2.
Personal pension complaints, like SIPP complaints, saw another rise after dropping between July and September. The ombudsman received 408 new cases in Q3 after seeing 337 new cases in Q2 and 438 in Q1.
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