Payment of Independent mortgage adviser

ACG

What about your insurance company? 
Funny this should crop up as I have literally had our PI renewal today and in the list of things excluded from any payout. 

This insurance shall not provide any indemnity where, in the event of a complaint or claim, the Insured is unable to provide Insurers with a copy of the client file and/or relevant computer records.               

K_S

ACG said:

What about your insurance company? 
Funny this should crop up as I have literally had our PI renewal today and in the list of things excluded from any payout. 
This insurance shall not provide any indemnity where, in the event of a complaint or claim, the Insured is unable to provide Insurers with a copy of the client file and/or relevant computer records.               

@ACG It's 6 years for us if a recommendation was made and indefinitely if it resulted in business, my compliance head tells me.

I'm an AR and my PI cover is through the principal so not sure of the nuts and bolts on that front.

So the 3 years for the broker I was referring to is probably their interpretation of the rules for advice that didn't result in business. I must add, I'm no compliance expert! 

ACG

Our Terms refer to GDPR and state where advice is given we may retain paperwork indefinitely, the customer can refuse to agree to it but if they do then we can not proceed. 

I have this off the ICO website:
The GDPR does not dictate how long you should keep personal data. It is up to you to justify this, based on your purposes for processing. You are in the best position to judge how long you need it. You must also be able to justify why you need to keep personal data in a form that permits identification of individuals.

- Our justification would be insurance requirements. The FCA require you to be insured, so there is also regulatory requirements to consider. 

dunstonh

It is a big business risk if you are deleting files after 3-6 years.     The interpretation is leaving you open to redress in the future because you are unable to defend yourself.
Where there is an issue of liability, files can be retained for as long as the liability exists.   As the FOS has no time bar, this allows you to retain files indefinitely. 

MWT

ACG said:

Our Terms refer to GDPR and state where advice is given we may retain paperwork indefinitely, the customer can refuse to agree to it but if they do then we can not proceed.

I've spent far too much time (and money) with expensive GDPR lawyers and it really does all boil down to what you describe.

The gold standard is to establish a contractual right to collect, process and retain the data, and have a cast-iron justification for why your selected retention time-period is 'reasonable'.

Nail that and you've got the basics covered.