Aviva academy plans to create adviser mentors

Top performers from the Aviva training academy could be invited to act as ‘professional gurus’ to help inspire advisers achieve level four qualifications and beyond, under plans being considered by the insurer.

Aviva wants to build on the success of its academy with the launch next year of a fellowship programme that would seek to identify three advisers who have scored top marks in their diploma exams to serve as mentors to their peers.

Alexandra Plant, market change manager at Aviva, said: ‘It would be great to have them act as an example to other people. We would like to ask academy members to vote for three other members who could become professional gurus and help prepare for the next generation.’

The plans emerged as Aviva revealed the four individuals from its academy who had scored the highest marks in the April sitting of the Chartered Insurance Institute diploma exams (see seperate story).

The successful candidates indicate the rapidly changing face of the advisory sector: three were women, three worked in accountancy practices and three had either worked as a paraplanner before becoming an adviser or in the case of Simon Moran of S4 Financial in Camberley, Surrey, were still a paraplanner.

Eugenie Cameron, a chartered financial planner at Hazlewoods Financial Planning in Staverton who scored the best mark in the JO2 trusts exam, urged other advisers to be positive and to engage with the need to reach level four and go beyond. ‘I think the diploma offers a broad spectrum of knowledge that is needed to provide good and comprehensive advice. They need to see it as a starting point for their professional qualifications.’

All four candidates liked the Aviva Academy for the way it combined online ‘virtual’ classrooms and summaries of CII texts with a schedule of face-to-face revision sessions.

The programme continues to achieve a higher than average rate of passes. However, the margin of superiority over the CII average pass rate has slipped from 9% in October to 6% after the April sittings. On average so far just 52% of candidates who have gone through Aviva Academy have passed. Despite the pressure of RDR, drop out rates may also be high. Of 3,800 advisers who enrolled with Aviva only 1,600 have taken an exam, although with advisers taking exams last week and this week this number is sure to grow.

Other academies have met with mixed success. Positive Solutions said 86% or 1,453 of its partners had signed up with 1,217 registered for exams. Pass rates were within the normal CII range of 45%-55%, said Keith Gilmour, marketing director.

SimplyBiz has seen 3,500 advisers enroll for its New Model Business Academy but had no further figures. The Sesame Academy was only launched on 10 July and does not have any advisers enrolled yet, while Tenet, which launched its academy last September, had only 30 advisers on its year-long programme. Figures were unavailable from Zurich, Skandia or Scottish Widows.