Our Post-Exam Review of the October 2025 CII R06 Exam
Our Post-Exam Review of the October 2025 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 27 November 2025.
You can access the exam guide here.*
Case Study 1
Case Study 1 introduced us to Jeremy and Anna.
Their financial aims were to:
- ensure they have sufficient income to allow Jeremy to reduce his working hours to a three-day week in January 2026;
- repay their outstanding mortgage;
- generate a tax-efficient and sustainable income throughout retirement.
| Question | Our Analysis |
|---|---|
| State the additional information that a financial adviser would require in order to advise Jeremy and Anna on whether Jeremy can afford to reduce his working hours in January. | This opening ‘missing information’ question focused on one of Jeremy and Anna’s key objectives; establishing affordability once Jeremy drops to a three-day week. We hope candidates were not put off by the specific nature of this fact-finding question, as much of the missing information they had no doubt revised (and which was included in our analysis) could have been used to answer this question in full. For example, some of the less obvious points linked to reducing his hours such as use of the CGT annual exemption, pension contribution history, capacity for loss and plans for gifting were all valid point as they still relate to the broader subject of the affordability of Jeremy reducing his hours. There is no negative marking, so if in doubt, candidates should always include any potentially relevant points even those that may seem less obvious at first glance. |
| Outline to Jeremy and Anna the key factors that they should take into consideration before deciding whether they should draw their State Pensions in 2026 or defer them. | Jeremy and Anna intended to work past State Pension age so there was a high probability that deferring the State Pension would be tested. We had included a full page on this subject in our analysis, including the benefits and drawbacks of deferring. We hope candidates could adapt this information to effectively answer this question. |
| Explain to Jeremy and Anna the key reasons why it is important to review their investment holdings within their pensions before they reach retirement. | For clients approaching retirement, it is essential to review their investment funds to ensure they remain appropriate for their changing needs. Jeremy’s fund was extremely high risk for someone so close to retirement, and Anna’s were also relatively high risk and lacked diversification. These are clear red flags that suggest a fund review question would be on the examiners’ radar. We therefore covered this in detail in our analysis, and this exact issue appeared in our self-test questions. |
| Recommend and justify a range of options to enable Jeremy and Anna to supplement their income from January 2026, if Jeremy reduces his working hours. | For each of the clients’ stated objectives, we advise candidates to try to anticipate a “recommend and justify” style question. Our analysis provides a recommend and justify question with full model answers for most of the clients’ objectives, and we therefore included a model answer covering the objective of generating an income from January 2026. |
| Explain to Jeremy and Anna how they could draw a tax-efficient lump sum from the Onshore Investment Bond to enable them to repay their outstanding mortgage. | Based on our R06 experience, we felt the use of the investment bond to repay the mortgage was likely to be the key question relating to Aim 2. Therefore, our ‘meeting objectives’ section in the analysis for Aim 2 was focused solely on the use of the bond. Whilst this was a tricky subject, we hope candidates who studied our analysis were well prepared to answer this question. |
| Jeremy and Anna are considering writing off the loan that they made to Ellen and instead treating it as a gift. Explain to Jeremy and Anna the Inheritance Tax implications of this course of action. | Again, this was an area clearly signposted in the case study (which we always like!), so we were able to set out in our analysis the issues around writing off the loan, including the tax implications of it becoming a potentially exempt transfer. |
| Identify the actions that a financial adviser could take to ensure that they meet their Consumer Duty obligations when working with Jeremy and Anna. | This was one of those more generic questions that could appear in any R06 exam. It is highly topical for the FCA, and the CII have examined it extensively over the past two years. We had provided full model answers in our ‘further questions and technical details’ section of the analysis. This question also highlights the importance of pre-case study release revision. Many generic questions can be revised well in advance as they can apply to almost all clients, allowing candidates more time to focus on the technical details raised in the case study in the final two weeks before the exam. |
Case Study 2
Onto case study two where we met Paul and Sangita.
Their financial aims were to:
- ensure that sufficient financial protection is in place to support the family in the event of either death or disability;
- improve the tax-efficiency of their current financial arrangements;
- set up an appropriate investment strategy to build up their retirement savings.
| Question | Our Analysis |
|---|---|
| Identify the key weaknesses in Paul and Sangita’s current financial arrangements. | The key weaknesses in Paul and Sangita’s financial arrangements were highlighted in our SWOT analysis. This question demonstrates the importance of preparing a SWOT analysis, as it not only helps candidates bring the clients to life by considering their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, but also highlights areas for revision and, as in this case, can sometimes even directly answer a question. |
| Explain to Paul why it would be beneficial for him to opt into his employer’s workplace pension scheme. | Anyone of working age opting out of their employer’s scheme is likely to raise concerns, so it was not surprising that the examiner chose to test the benefits of him opting back in. We had covered this exact question with full model answers in our analysis. |
| Recommend and justify a range of actions that would enable Paul and Sangita to improve the tax-efficiency of their current financial arrangements. | The R06 examiner is usually pretty consistent: whenever there is an aim to improve the tax efficiency of the clients’ financial arrangements, a “recommend and justify” question on how to achieve this is almost always included. We therefore incorporated this exact question, with full model answers in our analysis. |
| Explain to Paul and Sangita how their individual estates would be distributed on death if they do not have valid Wills. | We knew Paul and Sangita did not have Wills in place. From experience we know, given this scenario, R06 is likely to test either the importance of putting a Will in place or how the estate would be treated on death under the laws of intestacy. We had therefore included full model answers to this question. |
| Recommend and justify a suitable life assurance policy to provide a lump sum to the survivor in the event of either death and explain how it should be set up. | When clients have protection needs, a “recommend and justify” protection product question is also commonly examined. We had covered family income benefit, which provides regular income, but our model answer could easily have been adapted to a term assurance plan to provide a lump sum. All the recommendations (and justifications) we had provided for how the policy should be set up e.g. guaranteed premiums. in trust, waiver of premium, indexation etc were all relevant to term assurance also. |
| Explain to Sangita why she should consider adjusting the investment strategy within her workplace pension plan. | This was one of Paul and Sangita’s highlighted aims, so understanding the key issues around adjusting the investment strategy was an important part of revision. We included a question on outlining the issues to consider when setting up an appropriate investment strategy, which could have been adapted to answer this question. |
| Identify eight key issues that a financial adviser should discuss with Paul and Sangita at their next annual review. | Well-prepared candidates using our analysis would have expected the final question of the paper to be focused on the next annual review, so we hope candidates were able to confidently recall eight points to finish the exam strongly. |
Chartered Insurance Institute (2025). R06 – Financial planning practice: October 2025 Examination Guide. Retrieved from www.cii.co.uk.
Summary
Those who had completed extensive pre-case-study preparation on exam technique would have been well placed for the fact-finding, review, and ‘recommend and justify’ questions, and able to apply our model answers with confidence.
Candidates who had also revised more generic areas, such as the benefits of financial advice, would have been better prepared for the less predictable questions, such as the one on Consumer Duty, freeing up more time to focus on the case-study-driven questions in the final stages of exam preparation.
The technical areas were predictable and included topics such as encashments from the investment bond, deferring State Pension, laws of intestacy, reviewing high-risk pension funds, and the tax treatment of writing off a family loan. Candidates using our analysis would have no doubt scored well in these sections too.
Overall, we felt this paper offered a good opportunity for well-prepared candidates, while those with gaps in their preparation may have found some sections more challenging.
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* The CII has updated their retention policy and now only provides the last two exam papers. Older papers referenced in this article may no longer be available on the CII website.
