CII code of conduct
The CII is the Chartered Insurance Institute and this is the code of conduct it asks its members to uphold,
The Chartered Insurance Institute aims to promote the highest professional and ethical standards in the insurance business worldwide.
The Council and membership of the Institute look to you, as a member, to uphold these standards and the reputation of the Institute by:
2.1 behaving with complete integrity in your professional life;
2.2 complying with the law and with the best principles and practice relating to insurance;
2.3 conducting yourself in a professional and honourable manner towards those with whom you are in contact in business life;
2.4 observing and applying the guide to good practice;
2.5 giving due and proper consideration to the requirements and interests of clients and respecting the confidentiality of information;
2.6 ensuring, if you are a diploma or CII certificate holder, that advertisements and other public announcements with which your name or qualifications are associated are not such as might bring the institute into disrepute;
2.7 ensuring, if you are not a diploma or CII certificate holder, that your membership of the Institute is not publicised in such a way as to imply the possession of a professional qualification.
Enforcement of the code is the responsibility of the CII Disciplinary Committee.
Article 17 of the Institute’s Charter provides the authority for the Institute to take disciplinary action in accordance with the bye-laws.
Bye law 62 allows the CII to take certain actions against a member if they are found guilty of dishonourable or unprofessional conduct.
Bye law allows the CII to exclude students from future examinations and to amend previous marks is the student’s actions warrant such action, such as cheating in an exam.
Ethical funds
These are funds invested in companies that are termed as ethical. The term ethical is subjective but tends to refer to companies with a good ecological record and which are not linked to businesses that might be regarded as not in the interest of the environment or humanitarian action.
Positive criteria could include,
- Healthcare companies;
- Companies involved with environmental protection and control;
- Companies producing safety products;
- Companies involved in education;
- Companies providing housing;
- Companies with good health and safety records;
- Companies involved in energy conservation;
- Companies involved in recycling waste;
- Medical technology companies;
- Companies producing products benefiting the community.
- Companies with environmental programmes or who score high in an environmental assessment.
Negative criteria may include,
- Armaments manufacturers;
- Nuclear power companies;
- Tobacco companies;
- Companies testing on animals;
- Gambling businesses;
- Companies producing pornography;
- Companies producing alcoholic drinks;
- Companies regularly polluting the air, water or earth;
- Companies farming furs;
- Businesses in countries with disregard for human rights.
- Companies know to exploit cheap labour overseas.
A few life insurance companies now have policies that can be linked to ethical investment portfolios. This is still a small area of the investment market but an area that has seen increased interest.
Each fund would create its own criteria for selecting the investments it considered ethical and those which is did not. These life offices may have a committee that selects the investments that are allowed into the fund, or they may use their own or external researches to score companies.