Face to Face with Lord Hunt of Wirral: New hunting grounds at CII

As Lord Hunt of Wirral takes his seat as the new president of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) he has vowed that this year will focus on professionalism and reputation in the industry and is kick-starting it with a global move into the standards arena with a strategic Australian link-up.

This link up comes after a recent trip to Australia, where Hunt met with the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) to discuss how a connection between the bodies could help to promote a common vision and standards in financial services and raise both their profiles worldwide.

One of the main areas that ANZIIF and the CII think they can work together is to become a strong competitor to US financial bodies which have global dominance, and show that they are worthy ambassadors of professionalism and qualifications.
Hunt said: ‘In my talks with ANZIIF I found that we were speaking the same language and had the same vision about which direction we wanted financial services to go. We then decided to see if we could do more together and those discussions are now on-going.

‘The benefits of a link-up would be more access to key markets such as China and India as a standards body. We are in severe competition with the US and we would like to underpin a place in the market by combining more closely with other institutes. The US is pretty big competition and the more we can ally ourselves with those that have high standards of education, training and support the better. We were very impressed with ANZIIF and have a lot to discuss about driving up standards worldwide.’

Hunt has remained a key figure in financial services for over 40 years, having cut his teeth as a lawyer at Beachcroft on financial cases in 1965 after studying law at Bristol University. Having become a partner of the company in 1969 he then added to his responsibilities by becoming a Conservative MP in 1979. He sat for 16 years under the successive governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
In his fifth year under Major, when Hunt was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he was asked by the then prime minister to take over as secretary of state for health.

This posed a problem for Hunt at the same time had also been asked to become a senior partner at the law firm. He recalls: ‘I went to see Major and he asked me to become secretary of state for health but because Beachcroft is the largest insurance and health law firm it would not have been possible for me to stay so I had a real decision to make but decided to become a partner and I was for 10 years until 2005.’

His loyalty to the law firm has not dwindled since declining Major’s invitation. He still chairs the financial services division of the business. Nor has his enthusiasm for insurance and finance, which earned him an MBE in 1973, waned. He was responsible for the creation of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers and the Pensions Advisers Support System, as well as the Association of British Insurers’ Raising Standards Initiative. He is currently deputy chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance and Financial Services among other posts.

Hunt is already sitting as chairman of the CII professional standards board.
He previously helped it to draft its code of ethics and hopes that this will become the point of reference for professionalism. He is also hopeful that the CII will be able to cover the entire intermediary sector even if the Financial Services Authority’s retail distribution review (RDR) succeeds in segmenting the market between professional financial planners, general financial advisers and ‘primary advisers’.

He said: ‘The CII can be everything to every adviser. I see the CII as offering a portfolio of accreditation and qualifications for all types of advisers should segmentation happen. The key will be the transitional accreditation that will move the industry forward and a consultation is underway to discuss what accreditation that should be. We are discussing the ISO 22222 standard and we believe that will be the hallmark.

‘Overall, I think that members of the public want to be reassured that the person they are speaking to is well qualified and giving good advice. We welcome any chance to drive up standards but, whatever the standards are, it is the individual advisers’ performance that matters to the reputation of the industry. Advisers are becoming more reputable and that will have a knock-on effect for the rest of the financial services industry.’