Consumer Duty Support
The FCA Consumer Duty has raised the bar for protection advice, particularly for mortgage brokers. Protection discussions are no longer optional to consider, and simply recording "client declined" isn't enough. You need clear evidence that clients understood the risks, the options, and the consequences of their decisions.
That's where most firms struggle. Not with having the conversation, but with evidencing it properly.
Clerica is designed to support FCA Consumer Duty compliance without adding administrative burden. It guides you through protection discussions, prompts the right questions, and creates clear file notes that demonstrate good customer outcomes.
What FCA Consumer Duty Means for Protection Advice
The FCA Consumer Duty requires firms to deliver good outcomes across four areas:
- Products and Services
- Price and Value
- Consumer Understanding
- Consumer Support
Protection advice cuts across all four, especially when linked to mortgage transactions.
For mortgage brokers, this means you must actively consider whether protection is appropriate and relevant. If protection is clearly relevant (which it usually is), ignoring it creates regulatory risk.
The FCA doesn't require you to sell protection, but it does require you to identify foreseeable risks, explain them clearly, and allow clients to make informed decisions. The critical word here being 'informed'. Put simply, a tick-box decline with no explanation is unlikely to satisfy FCA Consumer Duty expectations.
How Clerica Supports FCA Consumer Duty Compliance
Clerica embeds Consumer Duty support directly into your protection workflow. Rather than adding compliance as an extra step, it becomes a natural part of giving good advice:
- Structured Risk Discussions - Clerica prompts you to record the risks discussed with each client: loss of income, critical illness, death, and their impact on mortgage payments and family finances. This ensures you've covered the key protection areas the FCA Consumer Duty expects advisers to consider.
- Clear Options and Explanations - The system helps you document which protection products were explained, what they would and wouldn't cover, and how they relate to the client's specific circumstances. This supports the consumer understanding outcome by evidencing that options were presented in accessible language.
- Informed Decline Recording - When protection is declined, Clerica guides you to record not just the decision, but the client's understanding of the consequences. This addresses one of the most common compliance gaps: proving that the client made a properly informed choice.
Evidence Without the Admin Burden
The beauty of Clerica's approach is that it creates robust evidence while you work, not as a separate compliance task.
Every protection discussion generates clear file notes that show risks were explained, suitable options were considered, and client decisions were properly recorded. If there's a complaint or FCA review years later, you have a defensible file that demonstrates good outcomes.
This matters commercially too. It reduces the risk of human error in documentation, cuts compliance checking time, and gives networks and compliance teams confidence in your advice files.
Built by Advisers Who Understand the Reality
We understand that great advisers aren't always natural administrators. The FCA Consumer Duty has made protection discussions more important than ever, but it's also increased the documentation burden.
Clerica handles this quietly in the background, prompting the right questions and recording the right information. You focus on the conversation with your client. We ensure that it's properly evidenced.
Ready to Simplify Consumer Duty Compliance?
Clerica is built to support advisers who want to deliver great outcomes without drowning in paperwork. Our platform guides you through Consumer Duty-compliant protection discussions, creates defensible file notes automatically, and gives you confidence that your advice files will stand up to scrutiny.
Whether you're an experienced protection adviser or new to this side of the business, Clerica works the way you do. It enhances your advice process without replacing your expertise.
Want to see how it works in practice? Get in touch through our contact form and we'll show you how Clerica can reduce your regulatory risk while freeing up your time for revenue-generating conversations.