Pension provider Aviva is to offer enquiries from people with pension pots below £30,000 to rival providers. They will be channeled via a special annuity referral service that will search other pension providers for the best deal. Aviva had been testing the process with retail clients and now will roll it out to include maturing pension customers. Customers will only get referred if they don’t already have a financial adviser assisting them. Those who enquire are then offered rates from other providers such as Aegon , Prudential, Canada Life, Legal & General and Partnership Assurance.
Aviva get a cut of the commission from any deal that goes through, however they have not disclosed this amount. They admitted they had not paid enough attention to those retirees with smaller pension pots. The reason why they are to send the enquiries to other providers is that small pension funds are not always commercial viable for all providers. Annuitants will benefit as they will get a selection of providers to choose from.
