Decumulation and pensions complaints 2026 H1

Non-workplace personal pensions remain the dominant source of complaints and increased year-on-year, while drawdown and UFPLS complaints also rose. Trust-based pension complaints fell sharply, suggesting firms' remediation and servicing changes may be having an effect in some areas. For compliance teams, the key message is that retirement income and personal pension propositions remain a supervisory hotspot.

Firms should not treat stable aggregate volumes as reassurance: the rise in non-workplace personal pension and drawdown/UFPLS complaints points to persistent issues in product design, charges, transfers, communications or customer servicing. Consumer Duty expectations mean firms need to evidence good outcomes, not just resolve complaints. Actionable steps include root-cause analysis of complaint categories, testing of retirement journey communications and disclosures, review of advice and non-advice boundaries, and validation of complaint categorization and MI accuracy.

Boards should challenge whether complaint trends are being detected early enough and whether remediation is proactive. Firms with trust-based legacy books should assess why volumes fell sharply and whether similar improvements can be replicated. Overall, this is a moderate-impact statistical publication with low immediate urgency, but it should inform complaints oversight, product governance and Consumer Duty monitoring ahead of further FCA scrutiny.