Royal London

Royal London sells pensions, protection insurance and investments, both directly to individuals and through employers and financial advisers¹. Its product range covers workplace and personal pensions, life insurance, critical illness cover, income protection and a Stocks and Shares ISA, and it has been trading since 1861². Its protection products are sold mainly through independent financial advisers, while its pensions and Stocks and Shares ISA can be managed online or through its app³.

As a mutual, Royal London has no shareholders: it is owned by and run for its customers, and it describes itself as the UK's largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, a position based on total 2022 premium income⁴. Because of that structure it shares profits with eligible customers rather than paying dividends: in April 2026 it shared £199 million of profits with approximately 2.4 million eligible customers through its ProfitShare scheme².

What Royal London offers: pensions, protection and investments

Royal London's product range covers three main areas. On the pensions side it sells workplace pensions (arranged through employers) and personal pensions, along with a pension transfer service for bringing old pensions together². On the protection side it offers life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection, which pay out if you die, become seriously ill, or cannot work¹. On the investment side it offers a Stocks and Shares ISA and a wide range of investment funds available through both the ISA and its pensions³.

With a Royal London pension you are free to choose your own investments, and the company provides a risk profiler tool to help you work out how much investment risk you are comfortable taking³. Its fund range leaflet details the investment funds available through a Royal London pension and its Stocks and Shares ISA⁸. If you want to read more about how these product types work generally, see our guides to pensions, investing, ISAs and protection insurance.

Existing customers manage everything in one place through My Royal London, an online service covering insurance policies, pension plans and the Royal London Stocks and Shares ISA⁹. Pension customers also get access to a free financial wellbeing service with guides, videos and interactive tools on topics such as planning for retirement, help with debt, creating a budget and protecting your future, including a free benefits calculator that checks over 30 different benefits available in the UK¹⁰.

Life cover, critical illness cover and income protection

Royal London's life insurance is term life insurance: it pays a fixed amount of money if you die while covered¹¹. Cover is available up to £1,000,000, with an unlimited amount of cover available subject to conditions, and it is bought through a financial adviser¹¹. Our guide to life insurance explains how term cover works and what to think about before buying.

Critical Illness Cover pays out a lump sum or monthly income if you are diagnosed with a critical illness or total permanent disablement¹². Royal London covers a number of critical illnesses, including the most common reasons for claim: cancer, heart attack, stroke, children's critical illness and multiple sclerosis¹³. It also covers additional illnesses, including some early forms of cancer, with a payout of 50% of the cover amount, up to £35,000¹³. You can add Enhanced Children's Critical Illness Cover or Standard Children's Critical Illness Cover to a plan¹³.

Income Protection is designed to replace some of your income if illness or injury stops you working, and like critical illness cover it is available through an independent financial adviser¹⁴. Royal London's protection plans can be arranged through its Personal Protection Menu, and its sister brand Bright Grey has its own version, the Bright Grey Personal Protection Menu; see also the Royal London Personal Protection Menu and our guide to protection insurance.

One point to hold on to: these plans have no cash-in value at any time, and if you stop paying your premiums your cover will stop¹³. Royal London's financial protection hub sets out how each cover works and recommends talking to a financial adviser before choosing¹⁵.

Workplace and personal pensions with Royal London

Royal London sells both workplace pensions, arranged through employers, and personal pensions, and it describes these as 5 Star rated¹⁶. Some employers offer personal pensions as workplace pensions, so the same product can reach you either way¹⁷. If your employer changes its pension provider to Royal London, you have the option to move your workplace pension into your Royal London plan using its workplace pension transfer service¹⁸.

Once your pension is with Royal London, you choose how it is invested from its fund range³. The company also provides a retirement planner tool: it gives you a picture of your potential retirement income and shows how lifestyle or financial changes could help you reach your goals, with options to increase your income and to save and change your plan¹⁹. It does not give advice or recommendations¹⁹. The information the planner asks for is your existing pension values and how much you pay in, your sources of income and when you expect to stop working, and details of your other savings and investments¹⁹.

Royal London has also redesigned its pension communications. As soon as your first contribution arrives, it sends welcome material including your plan certificate and plan booklet, followed by a note setting out what is being done, the charges you have agreed to pay your adviser and what to expect next²⁰. Starting five years before your chosen retirement age you get a yearly update, and it sends a yearly statement throughout the life of the plan, a design it created after speaking to real pension savers²⁰. There is also a monthly email newsletter, Pelican Post²⁰.

How Royal London's charges work

Royal London is paid through product charges rather than separate invoices: as its costs and services document puts it, "You will pay for our services through product charges." It will tell you how it gets paid and the amount before it carries out any business for you²¹. In its pension transfer illustrations, the example charge is 0.75% of the value of your transfer payment each year²², and it states that it will not charge you anything on top of the yearly charge for transferring your pension savings to it²³. Today's exact figures for any particular plan come from Royal London's own documents and your personal illustration, not from a guide like this one.

Charges matter because they compound: a percentage taken each year reduces what is left invested, so the difference between charge levels shows up most over a long pension. That is why Royal London sends a note at the start of a new plan confirming the charges you have agreed to pay your adviser²⁰, and why its yearly statement shows how your savings are performing after charges²². If you are comparing providers, ask each one for a personal illustration on the same transfer value so the figures are like for like. You can get a personal transfer illustration by logging in at royallondon.com/onlineservice or by contacting Royal London's dedicated transfer team²².

ProfitShare: how Royal London shares profits with customers

Because Royal London is customer owned, it can share profits with eligible customers when it does well¹⁶. In April 2026 it shared £199 million of profits with approximately 2.4 million eligible customers². ProfitShare is not guaranteed every year: it depends on how the business performs².

Most of ProfitShare is added to With Profits funds, which pool customers' investments and add regular bonuses. Royal London's With Profits funds are governed by booklets that explain how the funds work and how profits are distributed²⁴. One condition worth knowing: Royal London With Profits is not available if Income Release is being used²⁴. Royal London has also said it planned to merge three of its other With Profits Funds into the Royal London Open Fund as part of wider changes²⁵. If you hold an older With Profits policy, the booklet for your own fund sets out the rules that apply to you.

Moving a pension to Royal London, and what cannot be transferred

If you already have a pension with Royal London, you can transfer your other pensions to it²⁶. The transfer value is the amount that can be moved from your other pension or pensions into your Royal London plan, and you will need the plan numbers of the pensions you want to transfer as well as your Royal London plan number¹⁶. You can start a transfer through the Transfer Hub, through the mobile app, or by requesting a transfer pack over the phone¹⁸. The process typically takes between 4 and 12 weeks¹⁸, and for the workplace pension transfer service it can take up to 12 weeks from the date Royal London requests your transfer¹⁸.

Not every pension can be moved. Royal London states that it cannot normally accept transfers from plans with a Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) or Guaranteed Annuity Rates (GARs)²³. The workplace pension transfer service also has an expiry date: you can still move your pension after that date, but you may lose benefits or features from your former pension¹⁸. More generally, as Royal London's own guidance warns, "You may lose valuable features or benefits when you transfer."²⁶ Before moving any pension, check what guarantees, protected retirement ages or exit terms the old plan carries. Our pensions guide explains how transfers work and what to check.

Making a claim: documents, timescales and why claims are declined

Royal London handles several kinds of claim: life, illness and protection claims, surrenders and maturities, and claims when someone has died²⁷. What information is needed depends on the kind of claim you are making²⁷. For a life, critical illness or income protection claim, the documents may include the birth, marriage or death certificate (either a full certificate or a coroner's interim certificate), evidence of any change of name, evidence of income, medical evidence to support the claim, and evidence of the amount and status of your mortgage if it is relevant to the claim²⁸. For a death claim, Royal London prefers an original certificate but can accept a standard verification form completed by a solicitor²⁹.

For serious illness claims, the diagnosis must be the first and unequivocal diagnosis of a serious illness²⁹. For critical illness claims, all diagnoses have to be the first and confirmed diagnosis of the critical illness, made by a consultant who is a specialist in the relevant area of medicine and who is employed at a hospital within one of the countries listed in your plan details²⁸. As soon as Royal London has all the information it has asked for and the claim is accepted, it makes the payment, and funds usually clear in 3 to 5 working days by BACS transfer²⁸. For serious illness claims or children's benefit, the payment goes to the policyholder directly²⁹.

Claims can be declined, and Royal London sets out the reasons plainly: the claim does not meet the definitions set out in the plan details, misrepresentation, fraud, non-payment of premiums, or the cover term having finished²⁸. Answering the health questions fully and accurately at application is what protects a claim later. Royal London publishes its full claims figures every year¹, which lets you see how often it pays out before you buy.

Bright Grey, Scottish Life and other brands Royal London looks after

Royal London looks after policies from a long list of brands it has absorbed over more than 160 years⁸. The Financial Services Register lists its current trading names as Scottish Provident, Scottish Life Pensions, Royal London, Caledonian Life and Bright Grey⁶, and its complaints data also covers Scottish Life, Royal Liver, Royal London (CIS) and Police Mutual³⁰. If your policy or pension is with one of these names, it is now administered by Royal London and managed through the same My Royal London service⁹.

Royal London also holds records for many former providers whose pensions have joined it over the years, including Abbey National Life Assurance Phoenix, Friends Provident (ROI), Irish Life (ROI), National and Provincial Life Assurance, Pegasus, Progress Refuge Assurance, Refuge Life, Royal Liver, Scottish Life, Scottish Mutual Assurance, Scottish Provident and United Assurance Group²⁶. If you have lost track of an old pension, Royal London's lost pension service can help you find it, and it warns that you may lose valuable features or benefits when you transfer²⁶. Its support pages also cover life insurance policies bought direct from Royal London and policies originally sold through brands such as Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) and United Assurance Group⁹.

One related brand works differently: Responsible Life, which sells equity release, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal London Group and trades under Royal London branding, but the Royal London businesses themselves do not provide regulated mortgage advice³¹. Equity release is a mortgage on your home, so it is worth reading our mortgages guide and taking advice before considering it.

Royal London does not give advice: when to use a financial adviser

Royal London's protection products are sold through independent financial advisers rather than direct¹¹, and its own guidance recommends talking to a financial adviser about protection decisions¹⁵. Its costs and services document sets out three levels of service: independent advice, where it will advise and make a recommendation after assessing your needs; restricted advice; and no advice, where you make your own decisions²¹. Its retirement planner tool, similarly, does not give advice or recommendations¹⁹.

This matters in practice because the responsibility for suitability sits differently in each case. If you receive advice, the adviser must recommend something suitable for your circumstances and you have a route to complain if they did not. If you act without advice, the choice is yours and the provider has only to carry out your instructions and describe the product fairly. For decisions with long consequences, such as transferring a pension with guarantees or choosing investment funds, many people use an adviser; for simpler choices, Royal London's tools and guides may be enough. Adviser charges are disclosed before business is carried out²¹, and are confirmed in the note Royal London sends when a new plan starts²⁰.

Contacting Royal London: phone numbers and hours

Royal London's main customer line is 0345 646 1016, or +44 1625 718588 from outside the UK, open 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays⁷. For complaints, the Customer Relations Team can be reached on 0345 60 50 050 during the same hours, by email at customer.relations@royallondon.com, or by post at Royal London House, Alderley Park, Congleton Road, Nether Alderley, Macclesfield SK10 4EL; quote your plan number whichever way you make contact²¹. Office hours exclude bank holidays in the country you are living in³².

Royal London may also contact you first: to confirm your contact details, to reconnect you with a policy, or because a review of its records has found it owes you money³³. It has recently modernised its brand and refreshed its visual identity, so letters and emails may continue in the old style for a while³³. If you have been contacted out of the blue, see the scam warning below before responding.

Complaints, extra support and how your money is protected

If you need to complain, Royal London will write to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days³². If it cannot resolve it in that time, it will write to you again 8 weeks after receiving your complaint³². If you are not satisfied with its response, you can refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service using its online complaint form, by telephone on 0800 023 4567, or by email²¹. The ombudsman is free and independent. Royal London publishes complaints data: between 1 January and 30 June 2026 it opened 344 investment complaints and closed 304, with delays and timescales the main cause of complaints it upheld³⁰.

Extra support is available if you need it. You can add a family member or friend to your account so they can speak on your behalf, and Royal London may need some more information to arrange this³⁴. Support includes British Sign Language through Convo, and Royal London says it will not share your information outside of the Royal London group³⁴. Its National Support Network offers help with any kind of problem at any time³⁴.

If Royal London writes to say it owes you money, you will receive a letter with a form enclosed from its Rectifications team to complete and return, and it will only use the information you provide to verify your identity³⁷. Finally, protection if the firm fails: Royal London is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme⁷, the UK's statutory compensation scheme for customers of authorised financial firms. The firm behind the brand is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority⁵, and appears on the Bank of England's list of UK insurers authorised to carry out contracts of insurance, dated 1 September 2026³⁸. You can check its status yourself on the Financial Services Register under number 117672⁶.