Completing a qualification is a key way of gaining the knowledge and skills you need to support your current job and to help you to develop your career. However, learning does not stop there. The need to keep your knowledge and skills up to date has never been so important.

CPD is any activity which is relevant to your ongoing professional development. This may be activity which develops your career, helps to keep your knowledge up to date or simply to support your role as a professional in the financial services industry.

This means that you can undertake some CPD activities which are not related to your current role, insurance and financial services, or to the CII. While the CII aims to support the regulator’s requirements, there is a wider requirement to encourage aspirational personal career development.

Most professions now recognise that the achievement of professional qualifications is not the end of learning at work; it marks a new stage of professional development which continues throughout working life. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seeks to formalise what most professionally qualified members are already doing.

CPD enables development to be structured in a way that meets your own personal needs, the requirements of your employer and indeed the regulator; ensuring you remain competent and up-to-date as this is the mark of a true professional. The CII is the world’s largest body dedicated to the insurance, savings and financial services sector. Employers, agencies, and the industry in general, recognise that our qualified members are required to undertake a programme of CPD.

It is, in fact the planned acquisition of knowledge, experience and skills and the development of personal qualities. You are constantly learning and developing, often without realising that it is CPD. We want you to see it as a benefit and not a burden. Undertaking CPD helps you to develop professionally and aids your career. Activity should be a balance of development relevant to your current role and that which helps build your professional and future career. We would encourage you to discuss your plans with your employer to ensure they are relevant and appropriate.

The CII is the world’s largest body dedicated to the insurance, savings and financial services sector. Employers, agencies and the industry in general recognise that our qualified members are required to undertake a programme of CPD.