Our Customers
The Group recognises the responsibility we have to our six million customers, as both custodian of their financial assets and supplier of their pension needs and life cover. Treating Customers Fairly ('TCF') is at the heart of our business, and all staff regardless of where they work are fully aware of the importance of TCF.
Our TCF proposition is:
- To offer our customers security and opportunities for growth.
- To drive new standards and behaviours in the management of ‘closed book/run off’ businesses.
- To deliver the behaviour that a properly informed and prudent customer is reasonably entitled to expect of us and to deal with all of our customers honestly, openly, competently and with integrity.
- To have an informed understanding of our customers’ needs.
- To be committed to helping our customers get the most out of their relationship with us.
The Group supports industry-led initiatives which benefit our customers. An example of this is the ABI and industry-backed Origo 'Options' service, originally launched in 2008, to speed up the processing and payment of Open Market Options, and Immediately Vesting Personal Pension transfers. Our Phoenix, Pearl, NPI and London Life books of business started to be included in this iniative from April 2009. We are pleased to report that our processing times have significantly reduced since going live with this process, following a number of internal initiatives to utilise fully the 'Options' capability. To find out more about Origo's 'Options' service, please visit Origo's website
During 2011, we aim to review and further improve the time taken to make a claim and process transfers, building on the 'Options' service success. In addition we are hoping to include non-maturing Pension-to-Pension transfers under the 'Options' mechanism. In an industry where market conditions fluctuate, this will mean our customers have greater control over their money.
We are committed to keeping our customers informed throughout the product lifecycle by providing relevant and timely information, including posting any unclaimed funds to the Unclaimed Assets Register. It is estimated that more than £15 billion of funds lie unclaimed in the UK and the Register provides a unique search service that helps customers find lost assets and re-establish contact with financial institutions. This service supports our existing in-house processes to help us stay in touch with our customers.
Through a regular programme of surveys and one-to-one interaction with our customers, we are able to gain a better understanding of customer expectations, and identify any areas of improvement that are required first hand. Our aim is to provide responsible, fair and helpful service. As a Group we recognise that sometimes things will go wrong, or that our customers may be unhappy with an element of their product or service. We take all complaints seriously, and have introduced several new measures which we will track going forward. We also intend to identify and learn from our root cause analysis which we will continue to develop in 2011. For more information about the Group's complaints, visit our Complaints Information page.
In 2010, the Group once again participated in the Association of British Insurers' ('ABI') Customer Impact Scheme. View our Customer Impact Annual Report on our Customer Impact Scheme page.
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