Our Post-Exam Review of the October 2024 CII R06 Exam
The exam guide from the October sitting of R06 has been released by the CII, prompting us to see how we did in predicting the questions and model answers in our pre-exam analysis.
This article is correct as at 14 November 2024.
You can access the exam guide here.
Case Study 1
Case Study 1 introduced us to Cameron and Nancy, a couple both aged 76.
Their financial aims were to:
- Ensure they can maintain their current standard of living throughout retirement.
- Ensure that as much of their estate as possible can be passed to their two children on second death.
- Improve the tax-efficiency of their current financial arrangements.
| Question | Our Analysis |
|---|---|
| State the additional information that a financial adviser would require in order to advise Cameron and Nancy on the suitability of their current arrangements to meet their financial objectives. | A nice start to the exam! As expected, a fact-finding question, worth good marks, covering the suitability of the client’s current financial arrangements. We hope candidates were able to pick up the full 13 marks on offer here. |
| Identify the key reasons why it might be appropriate to include Cameron and Nancy’s children in future meetings with their financial adviser. | The CII certainly threw in a curveball here! However, we hope candidates were able to earn marks by drawing on their own knowledge and a practical approach to the reasons for the children attending future meetings. |
| Outline the issues that Cameron and Nancy should consider when deciding whether they should loan monies to their grandchildren, rather than gifting monies for them to purchase their first properties. | Once again, this wasn’t one of the more obvious expected questions. As with the previous one, if candidates were able to draw on their existing experience and knowledge of providing a loan, we hope they were able to secure good marks here as well. |
| Recommend and justify a range of actions that Cameron and Nancy can take to mitigate their potential Inheritance Tax liability. | This question was expected given the client’s objectives and our analysis had covered the answer in full. |
| Explain to Cameron and Nancy how a whole of life assurance policy could be used to assist them with their Inheritance Tax planning objective. | A whole of life policy was a clear solution for Nancy and Cameron and we had included full details in our analysis. |
| Explain to Cameron and Nancy why their existing portfolio of unit trusts may not be suitable for their longer-term objectives. | Our analysis had covered the model answers in full which centred around the funds and the taxation of the unit trusts. |
| Identify a range of actions that Cameron and Nancy could take to improve the sustainability of their retirement income. | Sustainability of retirement income was a set objective and therefore looking at a range of solutions was always likely to be tested. We hope candidates finished this case study on a high! |
Case Study 2
Onto case study two, featuring a middle-aged couple Kabir and Emma. Kabir, is recently divorced with two young children from his marriage and now lives with Emma, who has no children and has never been married.
Their financial aims were to:
- Increase Kabir’s pension funds following the implementation of the pension sharing order.
- Ensure that the maintenance payments to Hannah are protected in the event of Kabir’s death.
- Ensure the children will receive Kabir’s estate on his death.
| Question | Our Analysis |
|---|---|
| Explain to Kabir why it is important to update his Will and any death benefit nominations in the near future. | Our analysis had identified the implications of not updating his will and nomination forms. |
| Recommend and justify a suitable protection product that Kabir could set up, which provides a monthly income, to ensure the continuation of the ongoing maintenance payments to his ex-wife in the event of his death. | We had recommended and justified a family income benefit policy to cover the maintenance payments. |
| Explain to Kabir a range of actions that he could take to improve his pension benefits following the implementation of the pension sharing order. | An expected question based on Kabir’s objectives and our analysis had covered this in detail. |
| State five benefits and five drawbacks for Kabir of using Junior ISAs to build up funds to meet Anika and Rashi’s future university costs. | Since saving for future university fees was not one of Kabir's stated objectives, this question was somewhat of a curveball. However, we hope candidates were able to apply their knowledge of the benefits of a Junior ISA to address it. |
| Identify and explain the actions that Kabir could take to improve the tax-efficiency of his individual equity holdings in the various UK smaller companies. | We had covered bed and ISA/benefits of an ISA and splitting the share portfolio. The model answers in our analysis had therefore covered the majority of marks on offer for this question. |
| Explain to Emma the benefits for her of setting up a personal pension plan. | Emma’s lack of pension provision was clearly stated in the case study. While it wasn’t certain whether her financial circumstances would be tested—since all the objectives were focused on Kabir—if they were, this question appeared to be one of the more likely ones. As a result, we included the importance of Emma making pension contributions in our analysis. |
| Identify eight key issues that a financial adviser should discuss with Kabir and Emma at the next annual review. | We hope candidates finished the exam well with this standard R06 ‘annual review’ question. |
Chartered Insurance Institute (2024). R06 – Financial planning practice: October 2024 Examination Guide. Retrieved from www.cii.co.uk.
Overall, this paper was manageable. There were three curveballs, which is more than usual for R06, and with two of them appearing early in the exam, we hope candidates weren’t thrown off and were able to move on quickly. There were also plenty of standard, expected questions where easier marks could be gained, highlighting the importance of candidates progressing to the next question if they get stuck.
Grab the resources you need!
If you’re studying for your CII R06 exam, and you’re wanting to feel more confident on exam day, grab our free taster analysis to try out one of Brand Financial Training’s resources for yourself. Click the link to download the R06 case study analysis taster now!
