Clerical Medical Investment Group Limited Reviews 

agree with everyone, trying to cash in a bond as part of my mother's estate. told over and over again there was a problem, today told it is an IT issue, the system can't release the money and they don't know when they can! Really?

The worst company I have ever dealt with. They are terrible from start to finish . They have a call centre somewhere where the people are hopeless. You can’t get a straight answer from anyone. I was told I would get my money from them 45 days ago . I has told 5 different days I would get it . I’m still waiting. THEY ARE 100 PERCENT CRAP .

Ok, this might come as a surprise. So read on. I complained about the delayed payment of an endowment policy in January of this year.
After 8 months I received a compensation payment for 1. Poor service
2. Delay in responding to a complaint.
3. Added interest.
The moral of this story is make sure you make a formal complaint.
Hence I had to give them a star or two.

Unfortunately I had to reluctantly put 1 star in order to write the review but in reality they don't even deserve that. I have been trying to transfer some of my pension out of there to another provider and to date they have taken 3 Months with nothing happened. It is impossible to make verbal contact with them as nobody answers the phone. Absolutely shocking company with awful Customer service

In line with Trustpilot guidance here is my feedback on Clerical Medical.
The honest part: All of what follows is factually correct.
The constructive part: Gerry was extremely apologetic.
My feedback: I can't find anything constructive to say about this company and would give 0 stars if it were possible.
All I wanted to do was change my address when I moved house. This was too much for Clerical Medical to manage and confirm but after multiple chaser messages, when I finally managed to make contact I was told that the change had been processed on day 1.
Then a pension transfer pack appeared. I hadn't requested it and was genuinely concerned that I might have been the victim of an attempted phishing attack. After several weeks of attempted communications I finally received a call from the complaints team. In short they didn't know why the transfer pack had been sent and promised to investigate. The communication issues were blamed on an IT system implementation that had gone badly creating multiple problems for multiple customers; I was offered and accepted compensation for all the problems.

The cheque was refused by my bank; well they would as it hadn't been dated !

After 6 more days of repeated complaints I took another call from the complaints team. They were unable to explain the cheque failure and made no attempt to address my concerns at the way the company, and therefore my pension was being mis-manged and wasted, simply wanting to close the issue with another payment. I declined.

So, deal with this company at your peril. Customer Service do not respond, their business systems do not work. Their management do not have the courage to address the legitimate concerns and are wasting your hard earned investments. As a company in a regulated industry they should do better, much better.

Clerical Medical do not deserve even one star as their customer service is non-existent, their communication is abysmal to (also) non-existent, phone calls are never to the right place, despite being given a dedicated number, and they do seem more than a little shy about parting with your money. Quick enough to take it but unwilling to repay it in good time. I feel 7 months is far too long to wait for a settlement so my advice echos that of many others - STEER CLEAR OF THIS COMPANY.

I cashed in a bond 1 month ago and have not received my money from them. And no, there is not a notice period, the money was due immediately.
Rang customer service 2 weeks ago, they promised to get it sorted but heard nothing further.
Rang customer service again today and just got apologies that they could see the payment is due but couldn't tell me why no-one had pressed a button to send it.
Complaint now made.
This is tantamount to theft.

I wish no stars was an option. My policy matured on 30th March and despite me reminding them for the total month of March I have not received my money. As if that wasn't bad enough, my policy is worth almost 40% less than I paid in. As of today (27th April) I have complained twice and been given dates by them that they have missed. Charlatans

Appalled by the total lack of service. Please read the reviews below and they are my review. Still waiting for information on my Bond which I asked for by email on Jan 4th and confirmed twice by phone was in their system - today is April 26th and still not arrived. Wasted my time and my money on calls from abroad and they are taking their yearly cut for 'managing' the Bond.

I do feel sorry for the employees who have to work with such appalling management and systems.

Like otjers, I have written to the CEO and no response

Like the Circumlocution Office from a Dicken's novel.

I have complained to the Ombudsman which has been 'accepted' and wait for some response from Clerical Medical without hope.

if I could give no stars I would ,Having read all the other issues with clerical medical I can tell you they are all true and accurate ,how long does it take to do a "system migration" not months on end, I know .
we will call you back ....liars .
these need to be taken to the ombudsman and the FCA this I will do if they fail to pay up on the day they say .
this used to be a good company until loyyds got involved
now ABSOLUTELY APPALLING STAY AWAY FROM THEM AT ALL COST

Tried to cash in a life policy keep being told it’s going to be paid. Nothing paid. Then after contacting again, their phone service is abysmal btw, it’s being escalated and so it continues. Lost complete faith in this company. Getting out before they go bust, been going on for months now

1 star doesn't reflect the disgracfull customer service I have received from clerical medical they tell you documents will be with you 3 to 5 working days and when eventually you get through its like a answer machine all say the same but nobody does anything complaints don't get back to you and no further forward 7 weeks on I feel like covid 19 is now a excuse not to do there jobs very dissatisfied

I can only agree with the previous comments I have read as my experience in more or less the same. Dismal service, dismal excuses. I have now emailed the CEO of Lloyds Bank who own Clerical Medical as it is part of Scottish Widows which is also owned by Lloyds. The email I used which was not returned (well at least not yet) was

Antonio.Lorenzo@lloydsbanking

you will need to add the last bit but Im sure you can guess as I am not allowed to add it!

I live in hope that something will happen!! But I'm not holding my breath

We have been investing with you for 23 years. We have called and called and waited in endless phone queues for over an hour. We have emailed multiple times. We are still waiting for a response to our request for information on pension plans which support flexi-access drawdown across the Scottish Widows group when we eventually retire.

We want to move forward with our consolidation plans and approaching current pension providers is obviously the first consideration. But you are not responding. WHY????

Please stop blaming your shoddy IT upgrade or Covid. The latter has been an issue for the world for 12 months and other organisations have adapted. Sort out your call system. Sort out your customer services function. Please start taking responsibility for serving your customer base properly.

UPDATE: Having wasted weeks and weeks waiting for you to act, we are transferring to another provider. SHAME ON YOU. (MARCH 2021)

UPDATE 2: NOW YOU ARE GIVING OUR NEW PENSION PARTNER THE RUN AROUND AND FAILING TO RESPOND TO BOTH OUR AND THEIR REQUESTS TO TRANSFER OVER OUR PENSIONS. LONG WAITS IN PHONE QUEUES FOR AN HOUR+. THIS IS BY FAR THE WORST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WE HAVE HAD. DISGUSTING. (8 APRIL 2021)

UPDATE 3: STILL WAITING (11 MAY). THIS HAS NOW ENTERED ITS SECOND ESCALATION. ABSOLUTELY DIABOLICAL. WHAT IS HAPPENING AT CLERICAL MEDICAL?

UPDATE 4: RESOLUTION (18 OCTOBER). When further calls and emails in July, August and September failed to resolve the matter I contacted the CEO. Following this a complaints manager worked closely with me and achieved a resolution really quickly and I have been compensated. It is a real pity things took so long but I have to say, when the right person got involved and took ownership, my case was sorted. Thank you.

Shocking customer service. My solicitor acting for my late mother's estate has been trying to confirm the balance due to the estate and how it will be paid to the estates funds since October.

Official complaint made under FCA in early January - they dont seem to care. Under FCA 5 days to resolve, 8 weeks for complicated matters - this certainly isnt complicated. In 4 days will take this to the Financial Ombudsman. I will also be looking to recover my solicitors costs and damages and interest that I would not have had to pay if the estate had been able to pay out.

This is one of the worst customer experiences I have ever had. I am an Executor for my late Aunt and I cant get through to them. They don’t reply to email and on the phone lines they say they are really busy due to a botched system migration. I have held on the line for 30 mins and 43 mins twice today and they cut the call off and don’t answer it. Terrible service.

Total lack of any communication from them. Impossible to get any email response. Extraordinarily poor customer service.

Rue the day that they were taken over by Scottish Widows! Look at reviews of Scottish Widows - and weep!

25 year Endowment policy matured on 20 Dec to pay off mortgage. Not one piece of communication since Feb 2020 - letter or otherwise. Can never get through - get rung back to be told ring back tomorrow - implausible as NHS frontline...just got a verbal valuation and to wait for a form to provide bank details - the same as the one they have received policy payments from for 25 years...now told 37 days! Absolutely appalling!

I have just spent 1 hour and 36 mins waiting mostly to speak to Clerical Medical. A little of that time was spent being passed around to others who couldn't help. I am entitled to take some pension out now I have reached 55. I called them on the 22 December for 23 minutes. This was to start the process of me withdrawing money. After my long wait and being passed around today, they claim they have no history of my previous call and want to start me from scratch in the process to get 25% of my pension. I didn't have the time as I am on nightshift so I had to let them off the hook with them promising to call me back once they have invented me. Despite giving them my policy number and all the details they needed, they claimed they had not recorded my last call or detailed anything on the screen. Do you ever get the feeling that these pension companies do not want to pay you any money out whatsoever? My husband is trying to do the same with one of his pensions and months later, he still hasn't got near a penny. You are put on a circular path where they continue to ask you what you want to do with your pension even though you are sick of telling them you want to withdraw some. I work in a care home, so you will get some idea how much I can afford to hang around on a mobile forever. I have a list on my mobile of the number of times and durations I have called Clerical Medical but in order to keep my money, it is easier to say they have apparently never heard of me despite paying in for lost 20 years. Dreadful!

Really appalling service. I have 2 pension products invested with them. Whenever I ring for a valuation, always queuing on the phone. Rang in early Dec to get a valuation and was told one of their IT systems was down and had been down for some time so they could not give me a valuation. Would have to be manually calculated and SLA is 37 WORKING days. I can do this immediately and get illustrations/transfer values immediately on all my financial products with other providers. And they say they will charge £16.4k MVR if I want to transfer my product because of their appaling service. I have zero confidence in their ability to manage my pension drawdown.