M&G still won't give me late husband's £400,000 pension which I need to pay my mortgage: SALLY SORTS IT
My husband passed away in November last year. He held three separate pensions with Prudential (now part of M&G) totalling more than £400,000, so I notified the firm online.
We have lived in Australia for 14 years but used my brother’s address in Birmingham to receive correspondence.
I arranged a ten-week visit back to the UK over the Christmas period to scatter my husband’s ashes and to settle his finances as much as I could.
However, I’ve made no progress with the pensions policies. Despite me expecting payment in January, it is now March and there is still no sign of it.
I am now back in Australia and need this money to pay off our mortgage.
M.S., Perth, Australia.
Delays: A reader is struggling to convince Prudential to pay out on her late husbands three pensions totalling more than £400,000
Sally Hamilton replies: I'm very sorry to read about your husband, who was just 56 when he died.
That is upsetting enough, but I know from the many readers who write in following a bereavement that dealing with paperwork and dilatory financial firms can make an already sad situation more distressing.
When it is clear who the beneficiary of a pension policy is, as it was in your case, and all requested documents are provided promptly, it should take about four to six weeks for the funds to be released.
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It can take much longer if there is doubt about who should be receiving the benefits (such as when a pension holder has failed to nominate a beneficiary) or information is missing.
You understood there would be certain hoops to jump through before M&G would release the money, but when the process stalled on several occasions you became incensed.
Staff had told you the funds would arrive in your account well before your return to Oz on February 23. However, you flew home with the claim still open.
You told me you had complied promptly with M&G’s requests, including completing a form declaring you were taking the pension proceeds without advice or guidance.
You also sent the death certificate, evidence that you are the sole beneficiary of your late husband’s estate and executor of his will, plus your bank details.
You therefore expected a speedy conclusion to the claim. Progress was held up on one occasion when you faced queries about whether your husband was living with anyone apart from you at the time he died.
You thought it acceptable to be asked this once but found it insensitive when the question was put a second time.
Two complaints you made about M&G’s poor service were upheld by the firm.
This included an instance when staff told you they were still awaiting documentation, although it had already been confirmed as received.
Once you were back Down Under in late February, everything went quiet at M&G’s end. On March 9, you asked for my help.
My intervention prompted the executive office to contact you immediately to apologise and pull its finger out. Three days later, £421,310, the proceeds of all three policies and compensation, landed in your account.
You thanked me and described this as an ‘amazing result’.
You say: ‘This money will clear the outstanding mortgage and leave me with enough to live a comfortable life.’
M&G admitted your payments should have been made on January 5, but said the fact there were three pensions to unravel had contributed to the delay.
The final amount you received included a sum for the potential loss of growth in the two-month period M&G held on to the funds, plus a total of £500 as an apology for the poor service and the delay.
An M&G spokesman says: ‘We’re very sorry for M.S.’s loss and for her experience, which fell below the standard of service we aim to provide.
‘Full payment was made on March 12, and we’ve offered compensation to apologise for this delay.’
Anyone suffering an administrative issue like this when dealing with a pension firm should start, as you did, by going through its internal complaints system.
If it still doesn’t make things right, customers can take their gripe to the free Financial Ombudsman Service at financial-ombudsman.org.uk for an impartial view. They need to do this within six months of a firm’s final response to their complaint.
Miele charged for repair despite warranty
I purchased a Miele washing machine from John Lewis in 2016, which came with a ten-year manufacturer warranty for parts and labour.
In November 2025, it broke down, so I called Miele and confirmed the warranty was still current.
After a couple of false starts the repair was made. Despite repeatedly stating I have a warranty, I was handed a £600 bill and then started getting emails chasing me for the unpaid invoice.
There have been about 20 at the last count. Please help.
C.D., Stevenage, Herts
Sally Hamilton replies: By the time you came to me you were in a spin from the constant barrage of emails suggesting you owed Miele £600 for your washing machine repair – and you couldn’t stop them.
Miele is known for its high-quality products, so I was surprised that its service was not also top of the range.
When I asked Miele to investigate, it soon confirmed your appliance was covered by a valid warranty and that human error was behind the repair being incorrectly processed as a chargeable service. As it was showing in its systems as an unpaid bill, this led to a flood of emails demanding payment.
Miele confirmed its records have now been corrected and that no payment is due.
A spokesman says: ‘This does not reflect the level of service we aim to provide.
‘We are reviewing our internal processes to ensure warranty repairs are correctly coded at the point of service to prevent this from happening again.’
Anyone struggling to get repairs sorted under a warranty with any appliance provider should write to the company demanding it sticks to its side of the contract, quoting the relevant terms from its paperwork.
Consumer group Which? has a useful template letter for this purpose on its website at which.co.uk.
- Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk ¿ include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.
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