Advisers at risk after trade body mix-up on CI guides

Advisers are at risk of further FSA action as miscommunication between AIFA and the ABI means many are not aware of critical illness (CI) sales guidelines released last year.

This has raised fears advisers are being left behind other industry parties and could be vulnerable to another probe by the regulator into their sales processes.

As COVER revealed in August, the guidelines was created with the aim of pre-empting censure by the FSA following its damning review of oral CI sales (including face-to-face) under ICOBS rules.

The finalised guidelines , originally proposed as scripts but later redefined less rigidly, were authorised for distribution towards the end of 2010.

The ABI believed it was the Association of Independent Financial Advisers' (AIFA) job to relay them to advisers.

However, despite having several months to initiate the mail-out, many advisers and major networks have not seen or even heard anything about the final version of the guidelines.

In what appears to have been a miscommunication between the bodies, AIFA said it was not aware of this responsibility after its involvement in the production of the guidelines ended.

It has clarified though that any advisers wishing to obtain a copy of the guidelines should contact AIFA directly.

Some of the UK's largest adviser networks were among those to be left in the dark.

A spokesman for Sesame Bankhall said: "We would be interested in seeing them and we may use them if they would be beneficial."

Their fears were echoed by Dean Mason, financial planner at Masons Financial Planning, who feared advisers were being excluded.

"It has to be an inclusive process," he said.

"Everyone is dealing with the public regardless of what regulations they are working under and should be given the same opportunity, because that is only treating the customer fairly. We should all be singing from the same hymn sheet," he added.

Andrew Ward, partner of Your Sure, agreed the lack of communication was worrying.

"It is absolutely concerning because we don't know where we are. I would like the chance to see these guidelines. We may find we are not that far off with what we do now, but we don't know."