CF5 Advice

Lloydie

I don't think I did very well in the first half of the paper but managed to complete the portfolio and justify all my recommendations.

How did you get on with the first half. I may have got his pension contribution calculations slightly wrong as I illustrated he was a higher rate taxpayer but I did remember that they could contribute into their childrens pensions so hopefully will pick marks up there. The protection products I wasn't confident with and neither the state pension benefits. I didn't spend too much time on them and went full steam ahead onto the portfolio build and product recommedations.

What did you think about the portfolio build?

quadrantforce

It's ironic, before the exam I was far more worried about question 1 than the portfolio building....

As it turned out, I was really pleased with the protection portfolio (two CIC policies and a FIB if i remember right) and IHT sections, think I scored highly but only because I had "really" come across clients in similar situations.

I totally missed the state pensions question, and because (as I do) I took the portfolio question from a suitability of investment point of view, it ended up generating too much income (£5k-ish). I hedged this by commenting that we would accumulate some and justified my recommendations, but I think the CII markers might be a bit anal about that

I also messed up his pensions bit as HRT (not taking allowances into account), ah well, we'll see (not confident!)

Lloydie

Hi all, just to let you know I passed! Got my results online this morning and passed CF5.

Hope everyone else had as much luck as I did.

dunstonh

Lloydie wrote: »

Hi all, just to let you know I passed! Got my results online this morning and passed CF5.

Hope everyone else had as much luck as I did.

Well done. Thats the easy bit out the way. Now it starts getting more difficult.

Lloydie

Going to start on JO I think now....

a7man

Can anyone recommend diploma exams that they would say are the 'easiest'?

dunstonh

a7man wrote: »

Can anyone recommend diploma exams that they would say are the 'easiest'?

There isnt a lot to go by really. J01 to J08 and pick the areas you feel most comfortable in (if not trading) and areas you are most likely to trade in (if you are)

Clipaldinhio

Hi guys,

I sat CF5 in April and thought i'd done well ! Checked my results online this morning and got a fail !

I'm a bit worried as I thought i'd done well ! And the cii wont give me a breakdown of my marks (it's their policy) so i'm stuck on figuring out where I went wrong.

I'd be so grateful if anyone of you who sat this and passed could give any comments on what you did (give as little or as much detail as you want).

Lloydie

Ok here goes...I'll try and remember as much as I can and hopefully this will help?

I thought I did a good exam and am chuffed with a pass mark. First time I sat CF5 and I was absolutely dreading it! I spent ages practicing portfolio building and justification and I think that is where you really need to score the marks. Also did you finish the paper? I know the guy sat next to me said after that he didn't finish it. I think that's a sign that he won't pass as it just demonstrates to the CII that you haven't practiced enough. That may be an urban legend but i can't answer that one!

I think many people may have lost out on a lot of easy marks. Everyone I talked to didn't put in the pension contributions that could be paid for by the parents for the children on the first part of the paper and that was an easy few marks. I wasn't too hot on the product selection of the CI policy and life cover options. FIB, CI and something else I chose, can't remember what now though!

He was a higher rate taxpayer as well so needed to watch for that one. I did a pretty simple portfolio and then justified it well. Generating the income was not too hard as I did this over about 5 different products and hit the mark. It was paramount that the portfolio was split into two as well and that you could justify the taxation of the income taken. They wanted an initial sum into the various NSI and ISA accounts and then the rest split between OEICS and competitive deposit accounts with his max pension contribution. She was not a HRT and he was so it was very important that investments were written in her name.

I think the easy points were on the first and last questions. The justifications were around 16 marks and the first questions were about what you would ask a client were the box standard ones like:

Would you prefer to pay regular or single premiums?
Can I see a recent pension statement or a copy of your company pension documents?
How much income would you need to generate in retirement?
Do you require a lump sum on retirement?

The hard question was for the childrens education planning but this was much the same in the fact that we needed to find out when the kids were going to go to school, how much money the parents would need etc.

Also the question about state pension benefits was a nightmare! It's hard to put down but you were looking at about 8 marks on this. I didn't spend more than 5 minutes on this as after you had the portfolio question. I think it's better to spend an extra 10 minutes on that and get the full marks than try and phrase the pension answer but that's just me, if your pension knowledge is good I guess you would have stuck that one out!

I hope any / some of this helps?

trophycabinet

Clipaldinhio -
I also sat the exam in april and got a fail, so you are not alone!

On my results letter i had "feedback code 2" which i later discovered relates to failing question 2 of the exam. Are you resitting the exam next month?

I ran out of time on the portfolio question and didnt get to answer the last 18 mark question at all, so didnt justify my hastily constructed portfolio. Looking back i just cant beleive how much time i took to answer question one, will have to work on my speed and be less concerned about my handwriting!



I did feel i answered the first question well, but reading the thread i completely missed the fact the parents could contribute to their childrens pensions!

I've got a copy of the april exam paper from the cii site so will use it for revision - does anyone know if they will they be releasing a copy with model answers?