How you’d get this certificate
- Zavmo teaches you. You learn the units one-to-one with an AI tutor, on your own work.
- You register with an approved centre. That is a college, training provider or employer Chartered Insurance Institute has approved to offer this qualification. Zavmo is not an approved centre, so you register with them, not with us.
- The centre assesses, and Chartered Insurance Institute awards. A qualified assessor at the centre judges your evidence, and the certificate comes from Chartered Insurance Institute.
The RQF Level 4 Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning meets the FCA's qualification requirements for retail investment advisers and develops core technical knowledge and financial planning capabilities.
These are the units Chartered Insurance Institute registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated. Zavmo teaches towards them on your own work, and work done here is recognised as prior learning under the agreements we hold.
Zavmo is not an awarding body, is not an approved centre, and is not affiliated with Chartered Insurance Institute. It does the teaching and the mapping. Chartered Insurance Institute sets this qualification and awards it, and a qualified human assessor makes the assessment decision.
Free first step
Try a free Future Fluency lesson first
The free part is a Future Fluency lesson on using AI at work. It is not part of this qualification. Next, a free account. We build your plan for this qualification as you set up. Teaching towards this qualification begins when you subscribe.
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What each unit actually teaches you to do
Financial planning practice Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Obtain appropriate client information and understand clients' needs, wants, values and risk profile essential to the financial planning process, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.
- Synthesise the range of client information, subjective factors and indicators to provide the basis for financial planning assumptions and decisions, considering both quantitative and qualitative data.
- Analyse a client's situation and the advantages and disadvantages of appropriate options, including investment, retirement, and protection strategies.
- Formulate suitable financial plans for action and explain and justify recommendations, ensuring they are aligned with the client's goals and risk profile.
- Implement, review and maintain financial plans to achieve the client's objectives and adapt to changes in circumstances, providing ongoing support and advice.
Financial protection Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the consumer and retail market factors and trends relevant to financial protection
- Understand the areas of need for protection planning and the main sources of financial protection
- Understand the role and limitations of State Benefits and State/local authority funded solutions for financial protection
- Understand the range, structure and application of life assurance and pension based policies to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the taxation treatment of life assurance and pension based protection policies
- Understand the range, structure and application of income protection insurance and options to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the range, structure and application of critical illness insurance to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the range, structure and application of long term care insurance to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the main features of other insurance based protection policies
- Evaluate the needs and priorities for financial protection
- Evaluate the relevant factors in selecting appropriate solutions
Financial protection Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the consumer and retail market factors and trends relevant to financial protection
- Understand the areas of need for protection planning and the main sources of financial protection
- Understand the role and limitations of State Benefits and state/local authority funded solutions for financial protection
- Understand the range, structure and application of life assurance and pension based policies to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the taxation treatment of life assurance and pension based protection policies
- Understand the range, structure and application of income protection insurance and options to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the range, structure and application of critical illness insurance to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the range, structure and application of long term care insurance to meet financial protection needs
- Understand the main features of other insurance based protection policies
- Understand the needs and priorities for financial protection and the relevant factors in selecting appropriate solutions
Financial services, regulation and ethics Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the UK financial services industry in its European and global context.
- Understand how the retail consumer is served by the financial services industry.
- Understand legal concepts and considerations relevant to financial advice.
- Understand the regulation of financial services.
- Understand the financial regulators' responsibilities and approach to regulation.
- Apply the principles and rules as set out in the regulatory framework.
- Apply the regulatory advice framework in practice for the consumer.
- Understand the range of skills required when advising clients.
- Understand the financial regulators' use of principles and outcomes based regulation to promote ethical and fair outcomes.
- Apply the Code of Ethics and professional standards to business behaviours of individuals.
- Critically evaluate the outcomes that distinguish between ethical and compliance driven behaviours.
Investment principles and risk Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Analyse the characteristics, inherent risks, behaviour and correlation of asset classes.
- Understand the macro-economic environment and its impact on asset classes.
- Understand the merits and limitations of the main investment theories.
- Apply the principles of the time value of money.
- Analyse and explain the nature and impact of the main types of risk on investment performance.
- Analyse the characteristics, inherent risks, behaviours and relevant tax considerations of investment products.
- Apply the investment advice process.
- Understand the principles of investment planning.
- Analyse the performance of investments.
Pensions and retirement planning Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the political factors which provide the context for pensions planning
- Understand the economic factors which provide the context for pensions planning
- Understand the social environment factors which provide the context for pensions planning
- Understand how the HMRC tax regime applies to pensions planning
- Understand the relevant aspects of pensions law to pensions planning
- Understand the relevant aspects of pensions regulation to pensions planning
- Understand the structure of Defined Benefit (DB) schemes
- Understand the characteristics of Defined Benefit (DB) schemes
- Understand the application of Defined Benefit (DB) schemes to an individual’s pension planning
- Analyse the range of Defined Contribution (DC) scheme options as they apply to an individual’s pension planning
- Analyse the factors to consider for drawing pension benefits
- Analyse the options available for drawing pension benefits
- Understand the structure of the State pension schemes
- Understand the relevance of the State pension schemes to an individual’s pension planning
- Understand the application of the State pension schemes to an individual’s pension planning
- Evaluate the aims and objectives of retirement planning
- Evaluate the relevant investment issues in retirement planning
Personal taxation Real unit · Chartered Insurance Institute
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the UK tax system as relevant to the needs and circumstances of individuals and trusts.
- Analyse the taxation of investments as relevant to the needs and circumstances of individuals and trusts.
- Analyse the role and relevance of tax in the financial affairs of individuals and trusts.
- Apply the knowledge of personal taxation to the provision of investment advice.
The national standards these units are built against
What the job actually needs, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
- Standard
Assess the client’s financial circumstances
- Standard
Assist the financial planner in the establishment of new client relationships
- Standard
Assist with the implementation of the financial strategy as agreed with the client
- Standard
Develop awareness of the tax environment within which specific investments and investors operate
The jobs these credits are mapped to
A qualification is never a dead end here. Each of these is a job record this qualification is a mapped route into.
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
Showing 6 roles, drawn from 69 job records mapped to this qualification. Near-identical records are folded together, and each row says how many it stands for.
Where this can lead
Associate Retirement Planning Advisor
This role builds the groundwork for advising clients directly. From here, the path can lead to work as a senior retirement planning advisor, a lead strategist, or eventually a wealth manager running a team.
See the whole journeyThe credits, and who awards them
Level 4 credits are regulated, and they are awarded by Chartered Insurance Institute rather than by Zavmo. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you have covered and what is next.
What you would be collecting
Financial planning practiceFinancial protectionFinancial protectionFinancial services, regulation and ethicsInvestment principles and riskPensions and retirement planningPersonal taxation
Each one is a real unit registered against this qualification.
How you’d practise it
You don’t watch this. You do it.
You are not assessed on remembering this. You are assessed on applying it, analysing it, evaluating it and producing something. So that is what the practice is: projects, role play and your own live cases, with a tutor in the room.
The Navigator · your what-if tutor Illustration - Bring your own plan Create
For “Financial planning practice” you bring the plan you are actually working on, not a case study. Zavmo pulls on the assumptions in it until the weak one shows.
- Draft the real one Create
You do “Financial protection” on a real document of your own. Zavmo works on the draft you have to send anyway, so the coursework and the job are the same piece of work.
What you leave holding
The standards this credential builds, in the shape the product keeps them
Nothing here is marked learned. There is no learner on a public page, so the map shows what the qualification covers rather than what anybody has done.
- Assess the client’s financial circumstances
- Assist the financial planner in the establishment of new client relationships
- Assist with the implementation of the financial strategy as agreed with the client
- Develop awareness of the tax environment within which specific investments and investors operate
How you would learn this
One to one, on the work you already do
A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.
A lesson from Financial planning practice, one of this qualification's own units.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
Learners will gain skills to obtain and synthesise client information essential for financial planning. The unit covers methods of data collection, understanding client needs and values, data protection regulations, and analysing client situations to inform planning decisions.
- 1 Remember
- 2 Understand
- 3 Apply
- 4 Analyse
- 5 Evaluate
- 6 Create
It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time. Teaching towards this qualification begins when you subscribe.
Built for CII Level 4 Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning
6 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Chartered Insurance Institute.
- Financial planning practice
- Financial protection
- Financial services, regulation and ethics
- Investment principles and risk
- Pensions and retirement planning
- Personal taxation
Free tools
Want a read on where you stand?
Three free tools, no account needed. Each one ends with a role, a level and a way in.
Learned on your own work, taught one-to-one.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your free first module is Future Fluency, so you can see how the teaching works before you pay for anything.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.
The title, level, credits, guided learning hours and unit learning outcomes on this page are taken from the Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Where this data comes from.