Advantages: trouble free investments Disadvantages: not managed by company
Introduction:
I have been a customer of Windsor Life for about 15 years so I thought it might be useful for me to share my experiences with you. I took out a private pension and a long term Additional Wealth Plan with them shortly after buying my home.
A little background on Windsor Life:
Windsor Life Assurance was purchased in 2004 by Swiss Re Group, which has been a well known insurer to other insurance companies since 1860. Its headquarters in the UK are in Telford and has managed more than 75 million in funds under management. It specialises in investments be they lump sum, regular savings, life insurance or pensions. When I took out my policies it was with General Portfolio, however they then changed name to GAN and then were taken over or sold to Windsor Life.
My good experiences with the company:
I have been ...
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Too many to list. They steal your money. Non-existent complaints procedure.
Windsor Life has just been voted the worst for not paying out annuities in new research published by 'Which' (June 2009). They were also slammed as 'duplicitous' by David Blunkett for not paying out money due to a penniless widow (May 2009).
It is clear why they are slow in paying out. They hold on to your money to make money for themselves. That is stealing.
I personally have had very bad experiences with Windsor Life. They delayed in paying out my endowment policy and really screwed up my plans. Their projected forecasts are also nothing like their final payment - be prepared to let them run away with thousands of pounds of your hard earned money to pay bonuses to their staff.
Unfortunately Windsor Life have taken over many old endowment policies. Their customers never chose them in the first place but they are saddled with them ...
Advantages: Good location, triple room available, price Disadvantages: Lots of stairs, NO HOT WATER, Not very clean
~~The Windsor Inn~~
~~Booking~~
A girls holiday was in order and Cork seemed like the perfect location as it was slightly cheaper than Dublin but there was still lots to do.
After trailing through many search websites we finally came across The Windsor Inn hotel. So this is where our problems began.
We booked the hotel through booking.com and got to the end of the whole confirmation part and paid when a pop-up came along saying the room we'd paid for was not available. I tried contacting booking.com who confirmed that no payment had been made, I even phoned my credit card company to make sure.
So an hour later we'd booked another hotel and I went to my emails and low and behold I found that I had confirmation of the Windsor Inn saying that we did have the room. (I eventually paid for 2 hotels in the end and had a real problem ...
