Aegon

Aegon is a UK pensions, savings and protection business that has been running since 1831 and today serves over 3.8 million protection customers in the UK, alongside millions of pension savers¹. Most people come across it in one of two ways: as the provider their employer chose for their workplace pension, or as the platform holding a personal pension, ISA or investment account set up through a financial adviser. It does not offer current accounts, mortgages, credit cards or annuities, so if your question is about day-to-day banking, Aegon is not the firm involved.

Aegon's products sit in three broad groups: workplace pension schemes arranged through employers, personal pensions and investments held on its platform (usually through an adviser), and life insurance and protection policies¹. Its best-known account names are Retiready, Aegon Retirement Choices (ARC), One Retirement and TargetPlan, and its pension app is called Mylo, which lets you find old pensions and manage an Aegon pension³.

What Aegon offers: workplace pensions, personal pensions, ISAs and investments

Aegon describes its range as covering both individual savings products and workplace scheme products, whether you use a financial adviser or not¹. In practice the range splits into three product types held on its platform: a pension, an ISA and a general investment account (GIA)⁴. The pension products include a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) under the Aegon Retirement Choices and One Retirement names, while the ISA is available through Aegon Retirement Choices only⁸. The GIA can also be used by UK-based pension schemes, trusts, registered charities, companies and partnerships⁹.

If you are in a workplace scheme, Aegon supports you together with your employer, and its workplace default funds are being expanded to include private market investments in collections such as Universal Balanced Collection¹. Aegon publishes illustrations of what saving early can mean: someone saving 5% of a £30,000 salary monthly from age 25, with the employer paying 3%, could build a potential pot of £171,000 by age 60, whereas starting at 35 with the same contributions gives a potential pot of £92,900. Both examples assume retirement at 60 and investment in the scheme's default fund, and Aegon stresses the value of investments can fall as well as rise¹¹.

For choosing investments, Aegon offers ready-made solutions that combine a range of investments into a single fund, or you can build your own portfolio from its extensive range¹². Its Risk-Managed Portfolios, which Aegon has been managing for nearly 40 years, can be used in a pension, ISA or GIA¹³. If you are weighing up how pensions work generally, see our guide to pensions, and for the tax-free wrapper, our guide to ISAs. Workplace scheme members can read more in our page on Aegon TargetPlan.

Retiready, ARC and other Aegon accounts: who each one is for

The account names matter because they tell you who the account is for and how you deal with Aegon. Aegon Retirement Choices, usually called ARC, is the adviser platform: it offers a pension, ISA and GIA with over 6,000 investment options as at 31 December 2025, including insured funds (SIPP only), collectives, ESG funds, equities, investment trusts and exchange-traded funds¹⁴. One Retirement is also a SIPP⁸. These individual savings products are advised products only, currently available through a financial adviser⁸.

Retiready is the opposite: it is for people who do not have a financial adviser and are not part of a workplace pension scheme, letting them browse funds available for direct investment¹⁴. TargetPlan is the workplace scheme brand. If you hold an ARC, One Retirement or Retiready account and prefer post, written instructions go to Aegon Digital Solutions in Sunderland⁶.

Aegon cannot give financial advice itself, but its free Aegon Assist service can help you understand your retirement options and make informed decisions as you plan for retirement⁷. Aegon does not offer annuities, so if you want a guaranteed income in retirement you would buy one from another provider⁷. For general background on how these products compare, see investing and our directory of pension and investment providers.

Life insurance and protection policies from Aegon

Aegon provides protection solutions to over 3.8 million customers in the UK². Its protection range includes a Whole of Life policy, which pays out whenever the insured person dies rather than only within a fixed term. Under its free cover terms, a single-life applicant must be under the age of 70, and for a joint-life policy both applicants must be under 70².

Aegon also offers a Relevant Life policy, which is employer-provided life insurance. Two benefits are available under it: life protection and reducing life protection. The maximum benefit term is the shorter of 50 years and the number of years from the benefit start date to the day before the insured person's 75th birthday. Where life protection runs on a five-year benefit term, there is a right at the benefit end date to extend cover for a further five years without providing any more health or lifestyle information¹⁵.

These policies pay a cash sum to family or a business if the insured person dies, and they sit alongside the state's bereavement support rather than replacing it. If you are comparing types of cover, our guides to protection insurance and insurance explain the market, and our page on the Aegon Personal Protection Policy covers that product in detail.

How Aegon's charges work

Aegon does not publish a single price list on its customer pages, because most of its charges depend on the product, the scheme and the adviser involved. On its platform there are three main types of charge: an annual platform charge, investment charges, and adviser charges¹⁶. The annual platform charge is taken monthly from the account, and for charging band 1, covering the first £100,000 of total holdings, it is 0.29%¹⁶. Aegon may vary these charges in future¹⁶.

Adviser charges, where an adviser is involved, can be an initial charge, an ongoing charge, a service charge or an ad hoc charge¹⁶. Where a discretionary fund manager is used, Aegon pays the agreed charge to that manager on the client's behalf and takes it from the cash facility¹⁶. Investment charges, the costs inside each fund, are the same for each fund no matter which Aegon service area you are part of¹⁷.

Workplace schemes are priced individually, based on factors including how many members the scheme has, how long members are expected to save with Aegon, the average ongoing contribution level, and whether members are likely to transfer in money from previous arrangements¹⁷. Across Aegon's active workplace schemes, 9,817 in total, most sit in the 0.51% to 0.75% charge band (6,350 schemes), with 3,224 schemes in the 0.25% to 0.50% band and 243 schemes under 0.25%¹⁷. For today's figures for your own account, check your annual statement or Aegon's website.

Choosing and switching funds with Aegon

You can switch funds at any time, though the steps depend on the product you have¹⁸. On the customer dashboard you log in, select the product, choose switch funds, decide how much to sell by percentage or value, search for funds to buy by name, set the amounts, and confirm the switch¹⁹. On ARC and One Retirement accounts you log in, choose the wrapper or funds to switch from, select "Change existing investments", sell by monetary amount or percentage, then select the new fund by typing its name¹⁸. Your adviser, if you have one, may do this for you¹⁹.

Switches on ARC and One Retirement can take up to 14 working days to complete, and during that time your savings are out of the market, so their value can move before the switch finishes⁵. Aegon suggests talking to your financial adviser if you are in any doubt, as switching may not always be in your interests⁵.

When choosing funds, Aegon's guidance is to understand your investment needs, consider your attitude to risk, and think about how long you have to invest. If you need your money soon, within five years, you may need to be more cautious, because you do not want to be forced to sell when values have fallen²⁰. Diversification, meaning investing across different asset classes such as company shares, bonds, commercial property and cash, and across countries and industries, is central to its approach²⁰. Fund factsheets and Key Investor Information Documents explain what each fund aims to do, what it holds, past performance, costs and its risk rating²⁰. The value of an investment can fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed, and you may get back less than the amount invested²⁰.

Aegon's lifestyle funds take the decisions out of your hands over time: they have two main stages, Growth and Retirement, and Aegon automatically moves the fund into investments that get you ready for retirement as you approach it²¹. Where savers are unsure what to invest in, Aegon points to financial advice, which is likely to carry a cost; advisers can be found in your area through MoneyHelper, and Aegon also supports an advice service called Origen, which operates independently of the provider¹².

Managing your Aegon account: online, the Mylo app and phone

Most Aegon accounts are managed online. Mylo is Aegon's pension app, available on the App Store and Google Play, which lets you log in to view your pension savings from your phone, with real-time notifications and help finding old pensions²³. Aegon is rolling Mylo out gradually by invitation, so if you have not had an invite you cannot register yet; if you were registered on the earlier Aegon app you can join Mylo using the same email and password by selecting "I'm new to Mylo" and completing onboarding²⁴.

For online accounts, Aegon supports two-factor authentication. You can set up an authenticator app by logging in, selecting Account, scrolling to Account security and choosing "Set up authenticator app"²⁵. If you change the phone number on your account, Aegon sends a code to your old number to prove your identity before the new number can be used²⁵.

By phone, general opening hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm, though every Tuesday Aegon opens slightly later at 9:45am while its team completes training⁶. ARC and One Retirement customers who need access to online services can call 0345 608 1680, and call charges will vary⁵. You can also reach Aegon by email, online form or post⁶. Aegon suggests reviewing your pension and long-term savings regularly once you know where all your pots are, and doing a full pension and savings health check annually on the same date each year²².

Transferring a pension to or from Aegon

Aegon accepts transfers in from a range of pension plans, including personal pensions and some workplace schemes²⁶. You can also transfer between Aegon products, for example moving funds from a GIA into an existing ISA or a new ISA with Aegon to use the tax-free ISA allowance, provided the contribution limit has not been reached²⁶. For ISAs, you can choose to transfer some or all of your savings from previous years²⁶.

Transfers out work the same way in principle: the value of your plan can be transferred to another registered pension scheme or, in certain circumstances, to an overseas scheme, at any time²⁶. One important restriction applies to final salary type schemes: transfers from defined benefit schemes are only allowed if carried out by an appropriately qualified financial adviser who recommended the transfer²⁶.

A defined contribution transfer usually involves six steps: check your current scheme allows transfers out, make sure you will not lose any benefits, decide which scheme to transfer into, check whether you need to pay for financial advice, ask your current provider for a transfer value, and ask the new scheme to start the transfer²⁷. Aegon also handles pension sharing on divorce: as the pension provider it needs information from both parties, including dates of birth, addresses, National Insurance numbers, details of the scheme the sharing applies to and any scheme the ex-partner wishes to transfer into⁶. For the wider picture, see our pensions guide.

Proving your identity and getting paid out

When Aegon pays money out, it first has to verify who you are and where the money should go. If checks cannot be completed online, Aegon uses a postal identity verification process. You can prove your identity with documents such as recent evidence of entitlement to a local authority-funded benefit, tax credit, pension or educational grant, HMRC correspondence addressed to you, a current council tax demand letter or statement, or an instrument of a court appointment²⁸.

For bank verification, Aegon needs an original or certified bank statement dated within three months, showing the account number and sort code and your name and address, or an original or certified bank void cheque meeting the same criteria²⁹. A mortgage statement or water bill must be from the current year, dated within 12 months²⁸. Documents can be certified by a wide range of people, including a bank or building society official, a solicitor, lawyer or advocate, a doctor, nurse or dentist, a serving police officer, a teacher or lecturer, and a Post Office official, among others²⁸.

Whoever certifies must print their name in block capitals, write or stamp the name of the company they work for, state their occupation and role, sign their declaration, provide a contact telephone number, and date the certification²⁹. Once Aegon has received all the information it needs, it can take up to 12 working days to pay the money into your chosen bank account²⁹.

Aegon scams: fake websites, cloned firms and how to check

Aegon has reported several cases of criminals impersonating it by creating fake websites and email addresses³⁰. Websites pretending to be Aegon have included aegonlimited.com, aegonlondon.com, cofundsaegon.co.uk, aegonglobalmarkets.com and aegonglobalmarkets1.com. The only legitimate Aegon UK domains are aegon.co.uk, cofunds.aegon.co.uk, retiready.co.uk, aegon-arc.co.uk, arc.aegon.co.uk, one.aegon.co.uk, digital.aegon.co.uk and aegonservicing.co.uk³⁰.

Typical approaches include emails with warning messages such as "unauthorised activity" or "security update" that link to fake sites collecting personal information and security credentials. Fraudsters may also clone adviser and introducer firms, offering opportunities to invest in genuine investment products while directing deposits into accounts they control³⁰. If you have fallen victim to an investment scam, Aegon warns of spin-off scams offering a recovery service to get back lost funds at an additional cost, with fraudsters claiming to be an official body³⁰.

Fraudsters are known to spoof genuine numbers, so before providing any personal information or continuing with a transaction, independently call the company making contact³⁰. Aegon also advises always finding out who you are dealing with by checking the UK financial regulator's online registers, its list of unauthorised firms and individuals, and its warning list tool for known investment scams³⁰. You may be contacted out of the blue through social media, by phone, or when searching online, for example for an investment opportunity³¹.

Aegon also warns about screen sharing scams, where a scammer uses screen sharing software such as AnyDesk, Microsoft Teams, TeamViewer or Zoom to access your personal information or accounts and transfer out your money. The scam can only take place if you download the software and hand over control of your screen³¹. Basic device hygiene helps: keep your firewall up to date and turned on, use anti-virus software, enable automatic updates, protect your mobile with a PIN or biometrics, download apps only from official app stores, and switch off Bluetooth unless you need it³¹. See our scams and fraud guide for the wider picture.

Complaints, bereavement and how your money is protected

Aegon's process for dealing with complaints follows the rules set by the UK's financial regulator³². You can complain by phone, email, online form or post, and if you are not satisfied with the outcome you can take the matter further: the Pensions Ombudsman investigates pension complaints, and in one published case study about a transfer value, Aegon accepted liability after consideration³³. Our consumer protection guide explains how ombudsman schemes work across financial services.

If someone with an Aegon policy or pension has died, you can tell Aegon by phone, email or in writing. Aegon needs the person's full name, date of birth and address, your full name, address and contact details, the date the person died, your relationship to them, and any policy, plan, investor, national insurance or wrapper number. The original death certificate must be sent by post, and Aegon returns any original documents safely and securely³⁴. Separately, government services must be told: use the Tell Us Once service if the person was receiving benefits, and tell HMRC who is dealing with the estate, by helpline or form P1000 if you cannot call³⁵. A surviving partner may be able to claim Bereavement Support Payment, applying online, by telephone or by post with both National Insurance numbers, bank details and the date of death; it is for partners, not other family members³⁷.

On protection: the firm behind the Aegon, Retiready and Mylo trading names is active³⁸. You can check any firm's status yourself on the FCA Register, which is also the place to confirm you are dealing with the real Aegon and not a clone.