Clerical Medical Investment Group Limited Reviews 175

I have been waiting over 3 months to receive my tax free lump sum from Clerical Medical. I am retired and am doing this through my Financial Adviser, who is also trying to transfer the balance to my main pension scheme. My adviser is unable to get a response from them. This is worrying when I no longer work and need the money.

Having lost my husband I have been trying to make a claim on his pension which he had been trying to claim since July 2025 but sadly died before clerical medical paid anything.

They don't answer emails in a timely manner and send text messages with limited information, so you call them.They then don't know why they sent the text. Stay away from this company if you value customer service.

The policy ran faultlessly for years then some 5 years or so ago I began to have customer service issues with long delays on answering phone and no useful knowledge exhibited by the person answering the call.
Over the last year the service has deteriorated to such an extent that I dread calling them. They answer the phone quickly but the front end staff do not have any real expertise or knowledge and certainly seem unable to pick up on existing ongoing complaints so every call starts from base line zero! Timelines are quoted at 10 working days and in fact are not achieved. Escalated complaints stated as 48hr response just disappear.At one point thet sent me secure e mails where the encryption solution provided to open them did not work something that has never been explained or resolved.I happen to bank with LLoyds and this situation is motivating me to review that situation and actively consider moving my funds to another provider.

We had 6 months-27/1/25 to 1/7/25 trying to get CM to direct debit the correct contributions, so many broken promises (20 items of correspondence between us, each one assuring us that the problem was sorted). This is the second time I have had to go to the Financial Ombudsman about them, the first time we did get some compensation but I feel they took advantage of my limited awareness of the impact their mistake could have made on our small business.
They knew I was going through serious medical procedures from February to July, but they didn't seem to care at all.
Do not use them, unless you want a nervous breakdown!!!!

I've been trying for over a year to get money from a bond with clerical medical. The amount of stress this has caused is unbelievable. The different tactics they use to stall must be fraudulent, yet nothing is done about this company. They tell me there is a problem with my registration certificate, yet depending on who you speak to a different issue is given, making it impossible for you to rectify, You end up going round in circles as you are passed from person to person. If you make a complaint you still get nowhere as you are given misleading information. They seem (conveniently) clueless. I've complained to the ombudsman and am STILL trying to get my investment paid out.

I want to sell a CM bond bought as investment 20 years ago to buy a flat. Called and they promised to email the surrender form. Called again same promise. Called again (20 minutes waiting for an answer each time) finally got the form. Emailed it and there’s not even an automated response saying we got it!!
Cursing the financial advisor who recommended it 20years ago. The FSA are equally useless and the politicians weak.

Appalling, unprofessional company. They have lost, on TWO occasions, certified copies of ID. Even though these were sent my a solicitor and signed for.

Don’t trust your investment s with them!!!!!

I surrendered some bonds, quickly easily and effectively. The staff were very easy to deal with, polite and efficient.

The 60+ minute call with Aviva who had no idea what they were doing is the sheer opposite the pleasure I had dealing with Clerical Medical. Experts in customer service.

I could give a sixth star, I would.

Terrible service!!
I deposited money into my pension as a 1 off payment. this was put in a holding account as I had not specified how I wanted it invested. This was fair enough, but I wasn't informed that this was done. If I had not noticed it would have sat there indefinitely. I then gave instructions on how to invest it and thought that was the end of the issue. However at the year end the transaction history showed there was no one off payment. I was informed that it would show up in the next years transaction history as it was done near the year end (as a lot of top up, one off payments are done). I then transferred the pension to a different provider (on the IFAs advice) and the deposit did NOT show up on the next years transaction history. I have been in contact with CM for 9 months now and still not resolved this issue and have finally entered their complaints procedure to hopefully find out if the money was invested or not. Hopefully it will be resolved through this process.

I'm not surprised to read so many negative reviews for CM, they are truly the worst financial services organisation in existence.

My brother passed away in June 2024, he hadn't made a will, a deed of variation was created and all parties signed. Despite this, CM have ignored the DOV and are advising they will pay to his estranged wife despite her not even being a nominated beneficiary to his pension.

The total ineptitude of everyone you speak to at the company is simply staggering, not on any occasion are you given facts in support of any decision they make, randomly receiving poorly worded emails that lack empathy is not acceptable.

I'm guessing there are a queue of complaints for the Ombudsman to look into with CM, our complaint has been registered now for 6 weeks with it only being assigned to a case handler within the last 48 hours. The 8 week period for them to respond coincides with the anniversary of my brother's death which is all the more upsetting, again zero empathy shown by CM.

Again, I'm not surprised in the slightest that any of the negative reviews have not been responded to, seems it's a common characteristic of a poor company.

They seem to make annuity payments whenever they wish - or not at all? They don’t do what they say they will on the phone. They don’t appreciate that they are dealing with the ‘clients money’ not their own.

If it were possible to give a zero or negative rating, I would.

I have been the servicing adviser for a client with a Clerical Medical Investment Bond since 2021. Despite no changes to our agency or FCA registration, I was informed today that Clerical Medical claims there is no valid Letter of Authority on file. As a result, they are now refusing to engage with us.

This is despite four years of regular correspondence with them, during which no issues regarding authority were raised. An official complaint has been submitted directly to Charlie Nunn, CEO of Lloyds Banking Group (the parent company of Clerical Medical).

Based on this experience, I would strongly advise anyone to avoid Clerical Medical if possible, or to move their business elsewhere at the earliest opportunity.

I'm having a frustrating time helping my husband even get a response to locating his pension. Two letters sent over 4 months and nothing. Reading the reviews and working within FCA regulated environment I can only assume the regulator is asleep on the job. This organisation is falling short on Consumer Duty, its treatment of vulnerable customers and flagrantly failing to meet standards of a regulated firm. I would like to see action taken against the company and fines issued to its senior managers with SMCR responsibility.

The FCA should be sending a team over to India to find out what is going on with the Administration at Clerical Medical. The standard of their work is actually a danger to all of their clients and the entire operation should be shut down immediately…they are certainly unfit to be handling people’s money. The biggest issue here is that customer service and the complaints team based in the U.K. seem to have very little, if any, influence over what is going on there. It is out of control! A far greater concern is the senior management at this organisation, in their sheer ignorance, have allowed this to happen, and it continues to deteriorate. Not only should these people be sacked, but they should never be allowed to work in the industry again. What a disgrace.

Awful. Zero empathy. Left on hold unnecessarily whilst the advisor said "I will check with my manager" only to come back with fatuous incomplete and incorrect advice. Arrogance seemed a routine office culture for which I would have been sacked if I'd call handled like that. Whether it's £15k or £500k in the private person's pot, it's a lot of money to them. They don't seemed to have basic call centre customer service training. I found speaking to them very trying and the arrogance and ignorant attitude unhelpful, Also time consuming serving only to delay answering very simple questions. They don't see
to be managed by anyone and behave as though taking calls is beneath them. On top of that the investment isn't doing well. They have zero to be arrogant about. No emailed confirmation of my complaint so I guess that's likely to go down a black hole. Dreadful unprofessional experience

First I must pay tribute to the customer services staff - responsive, helpful, professional, but sadly let down by the back office decisions takers, whose arrogance/inefficiency/lack of management control mean that they do not respond directly, either to clients or to the customer services staff. Unnecessary delay, misinformation, contradictions, delays in responding, undoubtedly dealing with them is a dispiriting and at times worrying and infuriating nightmare. Thankfully, I am no longer involved with them.

I initiated transfer of my workplace place pension I had with CM for 20years via Nest pension, CM indeed transferred the funds to nest pension within 3 weeks of requesting the transfer. A letter was sent to notify me that a request had been made for transfer of my pension which I confirmed Last week and funds released this week to nest pension

I have been trying to transfer my stakeholder pension for many months and still do not have my money. As experienced by many here, service from Clerical Medical has been appalling at every point of contact. Is it deliberate or just incompetence?
When attempting to raise a complaint I was told they are not accepting new complaints as the department is backlogged.
Recommended you avoid Clerical Medical.

Battling to try and get a cash manual projection on my ex company pension and i am just being pushed from pillow to post, i have been asking since early september and i keep being fobbed off and i have put a complaint in with not action after 11 days which breaks their own rules of replying within 8 days. I was hoping to withdraw this small pension to assist me during a very heavy marriage breakup and i could do with the funds right now feel very upset and frustrated by it all . the service is non existant, i even feel its contributed to my depression right now , i wonder what they have got to hide ? no money maybe or funds to pay out ?

I have been trying to transfer my pension out of Clerical Medical since April. Despite repeatedly filling in the same forms the process keeps timing out because of the receiving pensions HMRC form is only valid for 1 month. Clerical Medical take weeks to process anything then send out spurious paperwork requests which consistently take 10 to 14 days to arrive, and the HMRC form then becomes invalid and the process repeats. You phone them up, they are polite saying everything is on track and then you get another letter to ask to complete the same forms again. They are a joke and should really be banned from managing pensions.