The Chartered Insurance Institute is to launch a life and pensions qualification in January 2016 to support professional standards and following industry consultation.
The qualification is aimed at entrants, front-line contact centre staff and those working in customer-facing functions, and will complement employers’ staff induction processes. Completion will lead to the CII Level 2 award in life and pensions foundations.
The unit was developed following CII-commissioned consumer focus groups in collaboration with senior representatives from firms across the sector.
Steve Jenkins, director of financial services at CII, said: “The results of this work revealed that demonstrating high standards of professionalism is vital to ensuring public trust and confidence, particularly in light of pension freedoms where the sector has a huge role to play.”
Adviser view
Jeremy Askew, managing director of Essex-based Town Close Financial Planning, said: “The more qualifications anyone in our industry has, the better. The more we want to be viewed as a profession, the more professional we need to be. We also need to be mindful of the average age of advisers and offer a clear path for all entrants to become fully-qualified advisers.”
