The Chartered Insurance Institute is offering free re-sits to all candidates who failed remote exams in July amid a series of technical glitches.
Advisers and planners sitting remotely invigilated exams with the professional body have been plagued by technology issues in recent months, with FTAdviser first revealing systems had gone down last month.
Candidates dubbed the performance an "absolute disgrace" and the exam system fell foul of further technical glitches last week when almost 10 per cent of candidates were prevented from completing the test.
But the CII has today (August 27) told FTAdviser it will be offering a free October re-sit to all candidates who failed the remote exams in July, regardless of whether they reported technical issues at the time.
Gill White, learning and assessment director at the CII, said: "We recognise that the exams did not meet our standards and given this and the situations introduced by Covid-19 this year, we decided to offer a free resit to all who sat in July and did not pass."
Ms White also said "to some extent" the results had been adjusted in a bid to ensure fairness in light of the technical challenges.
Candidates who sat the R06 financial planning practice, AF1 personal tax and trust planning, AF5 financial planning process and AF7 pension planning exams last month received their results yesterday.
Of the 1812 candidates who attempted to sit these four exams, 754 will be offered the opportunity to re-sit in October - a fail rate of 41 per cent.
The CII said despite the technical glitches the results compared "very favourably" to the October sitting at which 2494 candidates sat the same papers and 1316 did not pass - a fail rate of 53 per cent.
Ms White added: "To treat all candidates fairly we have taken these issues into consideration across the board to ensure that the final marks are a fair reflection of the exam and the circumstances in which it was taken.
"We have done this by positively adjusting results in line with industry benchmarks for disruptions of this nature."
rachel.mortimer@ft.com
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