Understanding the Review Questions on the CII R06 Exam
Last time, we helped you to understand and answer R06 ‘factors’ questions that focus on risk or specific product areas. Here, we are focusing on the questions that can be asked relating to client reviews.
These usually appear at the end of one of the case studies and are often in the format of ‘state the factors/issues that an adviser should consider when reviewing the client’s XXXXX position at the next annual review meeting’. Popular topics are retirement income/drawdown, IHT and investments.
Almost every R06 paper has a review question of this type, usually worth around 8 marks. There are often generic points in the model answer, which could be applied to any review question and so are easy marks if past review questions and answers have been used as revision practice.
Typical Generic Factors
Typical generic factors for client reviews will include:
- Personal circumstances/health
- Financial circumstances/current value savings/investments/pensions/home/estate/any further inheritances
- Changes in income/expenditure
- ATR/CFL
- Changes in legislation/taxations/economic changes
- Change in objectives
Other Relevant Factors
Other relevant factors when reviewing a financial arrangement could be:
- Performance/rebalancing/dividend income/yield
- Charges
- New products/existing products still suitable
- Tax rates/use of tax allowances
Other relevant factors for reviewing IHT plans specifically are:
- Change of beneficiaries/updating Wills /nominations
- Any gifts made/willing to make gifts/use of exemptions /use of trusts/Wills, and if relevant,
- Deeds of variation and lasting powers of attorney
Other relevant factors for Drawdown/Retirement income:
- Death benefit nominations
- Changes in annuity rates
- Enhanced annuity rates (if one of the clients is in ill-health)
We would suggest you also look at past CII exam guides and our past analyses for more exam technique practice on review-style questions.
Soon, we will be releasing our R06 case study analysis for the September exam and within this, we will highlight a couple of areas that could come up in this style of question.
Grab the resources you need!
We consider our R06 case study analysis a must-have resource for this exam. Our team have over 10 years’ experience working on the case studies for each exam sitting and we continue to accurately predict the majority of questions that are asked.
We consider the types of questions (and answers) we think will be tested based on the case studies plus providing generic R06 questions and answers as well as help on exam technique. The analysis now also includes self-test questions so you can practise exam technique and test your technical knowledge relevant to the case study subject matter.
You will also have an opportunity to ask questions of our lead analysis author on our email support day which is available one working day before the exam. Full details of our analysis are available here, or you can download the taster analysis to see for yourself what is included.
Information in this article is correct as at 2 September 2021.
