Insurance learning must target real skills gaps as FCA drop 15-hour CPD rule

New analysis from the Learning and Work Institute, published on 7 September, found that UK employer investment in training has fallen 29% per employee since 2011.

What training remains has also got shorter, down from 7.8 days per trainee in 2011 to 5.7 days in 2024. Alarmingly, the UK has the highest proportion of training sessions lasting under a day of any comparator country.

For insurance firms, that pattern has just collided with a significant regulatory shift. In December 2025, the FCA published PS25/21, removing the mandatory 15-hour annual CPD requirement for insurance distribution staff.

The FCA has said this is not a relaxation of its competence and training expectations; firms no longer have to log a set number of hours, but they remain responsible for ensuring competence.

James Read, Managing Director at Zing365, believes the two trends together change what learning needs to deliver.

“Insurance professionals can’t always afford to wait for the next scheduled session to learn about something that is already affecting their role. That’s the appeal of just-in-time learning: short, focused resources that let people refresh their knowledge or explore a new area when they spot a need.

“Bite-sized learning has always been sold on convenience and L&W’s research is proof that this training is becoming popular, at exactly the moment the FCA is asking firms to focus on outcomes.. ,But it’s no longer the whole story. The learning has to be targeted as well as short, tied to an actual gap in someone’s role, rather than a general topic they might find useful.”

L&W’s report is careful not to frame shorter as simply better. Read agrees that it’s not an either/or. Without a shift towards longer, more developmental training, he argues that the current pattern risks holding back growth and leaving both people and businesses less able to adapt.

“That’s exactly why we should not treat just-in-time content as a replacement for real development, it’s one part of a bigger picture. Businesses need a full range of training, from multi-day, instructor-led business skills, such as a Broker Sales Academy or an Aspiring Leader programme, through to single-day courses, to e-learning modules and just-in-time content. The point is to match the format to the gaps that need addressing. Some things will need several days and a room full of people working through real scenarios together while others only require ten minutes before a client call.”

Employee engagement and enablement remain vital to productivity and retention, but amid growing time pressures, learning too often falls behind client work as employees struggle to prioritise their own development.

“Insurance professionals know development matters, but they’re not always sure where their own gaps are, and that’s as much a training needs problem as a time problem,” said Read. “If someone knows exactly which competency a piece of learning is building, and why it matters to their role, the right format stops feeling like a guess.”

For insurance professionals who need to refresh their knowledge quickly, Read believes just-in-time learning works best when it is focused and checked.

“Rather than working through an entire course, people can revisit one area, such as an emerging risk, a regulatory change, a product update, and check that it’s actually sunk in before moving on. They can also review relevant material before a client meeting so they’re up to date on products, procedures or regulations. That’s a different discipline to hours-based CPD. It’s about closing a defined gap and being able to show it’s closed, not just logging time.”

Read concluded: “Learning needs to become more responsive to the realities of modern insurance, and more accountable too. The firms that get this right won’t be the ones who can point to the most training hours, or the ones who’ve simply made everything shorter. They’ll be the ones who can show, not just say, exactly where their team’s skills gaps are and how they’ve closed them, whatever format that took, backed by evidence rather than a completion certificate.”

Image provided by Canva

Alicia Ward