Howden Omdömen 

Numerous phone calls and making official complaints do not illicit any meaningful response. Calls to the helpline are dealt with politely and the log jam appears to sit with the ‘admin team’ who inform the helpline that information will be forwarded ‘soon’ or is ‘just being checked’ or ‘waiting for sign off!’. Not sure what the complaints policy is or does it even exist? Almost 3 months from pension application submitted and no idea what is happening. Who is managing this company?

No communication from them. No response to questions. Taken as much time as they could get away with to process my pension. No clear answers to simple questions given in writing. eg is my AVC tax free. They said it would be (in phone call) but then I found they had outsourced the AVC to an external provider. It took 6 months to get response form the external provider. I still have no clear answer re tax on this. Treating pensioners like puppets on their strings. I notice that Barnett Waddingham merged into Howden. Probably because so many negative reviews about Barnett Waddingham.

This company is a disgrace currently hiding it's routes I. A shameful group known as Barnet waddingham now hidden by Howden. Appalling customer service delays . Impossible to draw your on money before their ridiculously high fees consumes ones funds day light robbery . Their internal complaints procedure is a biased unfair and deliberately slow. I am 67 and I am having untold difficulty getting a payout . Avoid these incompetent hooligans of the pension world.

Stealing money from pensioners…
Repeatedly failed to respond to correspondence. Repeatedly failed to provide clear and concise instructions on how to navigate the so-called “Clarity” App.
Having initially contacted them in March, they then chose to start my monthly pension in August, despite my pointing out that I had been in touch since March - there was no response to my request for clarification, until yesterday when i was informed nothing could now be done!
This is essentially the same as stealing money from pensioners and is not good enough…

Barnett Waddingham : Very poor in updating yearly forecasts and replying to their online messages. To date, I am still waiting for a reply to my on-line message about lack of forecast updates.

Extremely slow at processing my pension application and now as i am typing have been waiting over 15 minutes just to speak to someone.

Charlie,, The customer advisor was very helpful and explained things clearly, pleasure to deal with and I would recommend

Daniel was patient, knowledgeable and totally reassuring in all his dealings with me over several sessions. Couldn't ask for better help.

Ponderously slow in communication.
The app name should be changed from ‘Clarity’ to Vague…
Communications when they do eventually arrive, tend to be so vague that they border on being deliberately evasive…

Update 30 september 2026

Mijn schadeclaim loopt inmiddels bijna een jaar. In die periode zijn meerdere deskundigen en onderzoeksbureaus ingeschakeld, zijn onderzoeken uitgevoerd en zijn meerdere termijnen verstreken, maar een inhoudelijke afwikkeling blijft uit.

Het aanvullende MEER-onderzoek werd pas na maanden uitgevoerd en het rapport is na herhaald aandringen uiteindelijk op 16 september aan mijn contra-expert verstrekt. CED gaf vervolgens aan de beschikbare rapportages naast elkaar te leggen en binnen circa twee weken met een inhoudelijk standpunt te komen.

Ook die termijn is verstreken. In plaats van de aangekondigde inhoudelijke onderbouwing volgde opnieuw een voorstel voor een tussenstap via Teams.

Mijn contra-expert heeft dit terecht teruggebracht tot de kern: welke schade wordt nog uitgesloten en op basis van welke concrete, objectief controleerbare technische grond?

Na bijna een jaar vind ik het niet langer acceptabel dat de inhoudelijke onderbouwing steeds opnieuw wordt uitgesteld. Daarom is nu een duidelijke deadline gesteld: uiterlijk 2 oktober 2026 om 17.00 uur de volledige technische onderbouwing van de schadevaststelling.

Dit dossier heeft lang genoeg geduurd. Ik verwacht nu geen nieuwe vertraging of procedurele tussenstap, maar een concreet inhoudelijk standpunt en daadwerkelijke afwikkeling van mijn schade.

Update 21 oktober 2026 – bijna een jaar later nog steeds geen inhoudelijke reactie

Inmiddels zijn we bijna een jaar verder en is de schadeclaim nog altijd niet behoorlijk afgehandeld. Een onafhankelijke LRGD-gerechtsdeskundige heeft een uitgebreid eindrapport opgesteld, waarin de schade, de eerdere expertiserapporten en de resterende discussiepunten integraal zijn beoordeeld.

Dit is voor mij geen voorbeeld van zorgvuldige schadeafwikkeling of klantgericht handelen.

Wordt vervolgd.

…..,,.

Howden ufficio di Verona.
Complimenti al vostro collaboratore Dr Marco A. che mi ha risolto brillantemente pratica di polizza l bersani successiva ad acquisto auto a nome di mio figlio.

Trying to get my pension sorted since February 2026 it’s been an absolute trek to say the least. Asked to collect my pension end of July this year now the middle of September still no further forward. I’ve been on the phone most days to them the last few months keep getting told the teams working on it and they are waiting on information from fidelity I’ve been told this for the last month. All I want to know is when can I expect to receive my lump sum and what exactly are they waiting on from fidelity how can you still be waiting on information from fidelity for over a month. I know fidelity have released my funds over to Barnett Waddingham on the 20th August so what are they waiting on. Very stressful as I also have been diagnosed with high blood pressure and this situation is not helping my condition.

Insightful, entertaining, friendly and welcoming event. And when it is at a brewery, an immense spread. Really a 'must attend' event.

As always, David McNulty gave me all the advice and help I needed to make a further tax free cash withdrawal, and Nikki Quint kept me fully informed on the transfer of funds. Again, your charges were very reasonable, particularly in views of the amount of work involved.

I requested a retirement quotation on 15th June. On 29th June and I was told that essential system maintenance would mean this being delayed. It's now 4th September and despite infrequent emails saying that system work is ongoing, I still don't have my retirement quotation. I was unable to get through on the phone (on hold 15+ minutes) so I've emailed for an update. I'm starting to lose confidence.

Barnett Waddingham have held my final salary pension on behalf of my employer for many years. I retired three years ago, and I wish to transfer my pension out and consolidate it with others in a private pension.

At every step of the way however, Barnett Waddingham have gone out of their way to be obstructive and prevent the transaction from taking place.

Getting Transfer Value quotes is invariably a painful and protracted process, but this year the quote was such that it was opportune to take the money out so after consulting with an independent advisor I initiated the process.

When we started the process there was plenty of time left on the quote validity, but BW took SO long to respond to the request for details from my advisor that there was little validity left by the time they received it.

Despite this we still completed all of the paperwork and it was sent by recorded delivery to their office, and we know that it was delivered the next day and signed for, within the quote validity.

Three weeks elapsed and then I got a letter from them saying that the wet signed forms 'were never received', and that they needed passport details to 'verify my age' (this despite them putting these details in my Transfer Quote themselves).

The sender did not have the courtesy to put her direct contact details on the letter, but I found a generic e-mail address for them (ironically given by them as a point of contact in some of the MANY other complaints showing on TrustPilot!) and I sent both a passport scan and a PoD for the wet-signed documents to that address.

I also took a guess at what the senders direct e-mail address MIGHT be based on others I had seen and I resent the entire mail string to that. It turned out that I had guessed correctly because I got an out-of-office message back. The dates when the sender stated that she would be o-o-o have long passed but perhaps predictably I have no response from anyone despite a reminder.

It would appear that this company will prevaricate in any way that it can, and make up any excuse that it can think of, to delay the transfer of pension funds. Given that it is my money, not theirs, this approach is in my view entirely immoral and unacceptable, and I would urge anyone who has the choice NOT to use this company.

Requested a payment from my SIPP and the team from Barnet Waddingham handled things smoothly and quickly with good communications during the process.

Working with the guys at BW always ends with a pleasing outcome, they are friendly, professional and apply common sense which I'm afraid is in very short supply in most other institutions these days.
Let's hope the theme will continue with your new hat on!

This company is useless of you want to actually get to your money. I have been trying to transfer out since the beginning of 2026 and we are now in August. Wonder how much interest they've earned on the back of their delays.

Never had a decent response apart from I needed to redo a box in a form, not just once but twice, with an extra months delay due to this as it was badly explained. Oh and I forgot the delay caused by my documents not uploading apparently.

Noone of any authority seems to be available to complain to.

Utterly dire.

Severe transfer delays holding up time-sensitive plan

Five other pension providers completed my transfers into NEST seamlessly, but Barnett Waddingham has turned a routine transfer into a months-long administrative nightmare across two separate attempts.

Scheme-specific email addresses go completely unmonitored, forcing endless phone calls and redundant paperwork for a basic transfer into a government-backed public scheme.

Any further delay will cause direct, measurable financial harm.

Management needs to immediately prioritise this incoming postal paperwork, provide NEST with the necessary transfer details, and finalise the payment before 18th August to avoid emergency escalation to The Pensions Ombudsman for maladministration and consequential financial loss.