Holding a qualification is now a mandatory part of being an insurance adviser, but TrustUs director Jane Eschenbach said she was surprised to see the lack of earlier adoption of that requirement within the industry - especially for those advisers who deal with more complicated forms of advice.
Eschenbach recently worked with PIQ to develop a new course for advisers looking to expand their skills, and she said that despite the widespread uptake of various qualification courses, there were still some ‘laggers’ - some of whom ultimately dropped out of the industry.
“I personally got qualified many years ago, and then I headed up the life and health channel for the very first QFE,” Eschenbach said.
“We took an early stance that all advisers needed to have a recognised qualification, and if they didn’t have one, they needed to get their national certificate and then go through the bridging course. So, there was a whole wave of early adopters, and it’s been somewhat of a surprise to me to see how many advisers were going to wait until it was semi-mandatory.”
“To try and operate at a high level without getting some sort of qualification is hard, so it did surprise me to see how many ‘laggers’ there were,” she continued.
“Having said that, it’s not easy to run a business and try to get a qualification at the same time. It does take effort and is more time consuming than people expect.”
Eschenbach said that for many advisers, returning to a ‘learning’ environment at a later stage of their career was a challenge. However, she said it had also offered the chance to substantially increase technical knowledge, and to become more comfortable in areas that may not initially have been an area of expertise.
“It’s a different type of learning experience as an adult, and it can be challenging to have to go back to doing online assignments, exams, etc.,” Eschenbach said.
“I know that there are advisers who have chosen this moment to exit the market, and there were many different facets to that - but I also think it’s good that people have taken the stance of ‘I recognise that this is a new regime, it’s here to stay, it’s not an environment I’m comfortable in,’ so they’ve decided they’re either going to pass their clients on, or join an organisation where someone else wears the ultimate responsibility for that, and go back to being more of an employee.”
“But I do think people have become far more comfortable with working within the bounds of their own competency, and then referring on,” she added.
“Getting those additional qualifications really does address that Code Standard 9 of keeping your skill, knowledge and competency up to date.”
