Insurance Adviser CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for an adviser with about eight years in insurance, most of them selling personal lines and protection, who started in an insurer's contact centre, sold for a direct insurer and now works for an independent broker. The name and firms are made up. If you sell only protection, only health insurance or you are new to the industry, keep the structure and use the personal statements further down.

Whether the hiring manager runs an independent broker, a team at a national broker or a sales centre at a direct insurer, the first scan looks for the same things.

• Your qualifications and sign-off. UK advisers do not hold personal licences: the firm is authorised by the FCA and you work under its permissions. Write your CII qualification ("Cert CII", "Dip CII") and the areas you are signed off as competent for (personal lines, commercial lines, protection). If you advise on pensions or investments, add your Level 4 qualification and Statement of Professional Standing.
• Production. Premium written per year, policies per month, conversion rate, or the size of the book you look after. Even a new adviser can show quotes per day and policies sold.
• Retention and cross-sell. A 90%+ renewal retention rate and 2+ policies per client tell a broker you build a book rather than churn one.
• Which side of the market you know. Direct insurer (one insurer) versus broker (many insurers), personal versus commercial lines, protection, private medical insurance. Each has different systems and sales cycles, and managers want to know how long you will take to become productive.

“Tell me your lines, your qualifications and your premium. When the CV makes me guess whether you are signed off for protection, I move to the next one. If the premium number is real and you can explain how you got it, we are talking the same week.”

Three or four lines: your qualifications and years, what you sell and to whom, your best two numbers, and your systems. If you are new to insurance, see the entry-level example, which also works as a career objective.

Each bullet needs a product line, a number and a result. Managers look for premium, policy counts, retention, cross-sell and how you got the leads. Here are eight common insurance CV lines rewritten.

Aim for 10 to 15 skills, grouped so the reader can tell in two seconds what you sell and what systems you can log into on day one.

Product and technical skills:

• Personal lines: motor, home (buildings and contents), landlord, tenants' contents, travel, pet, van
• Commercial lines: commercial combined, public and employers' liability, fleet and commercial motor, professional indemnity, property, surety bonds
• Protection: level and decreasing term life, critical illness, income protection
• Health and benefits: private medical insurance, dental and health cash plans, group risk and employee benefits
• Demands and needs assessment, cover review and policy comparison
• Underwriting criteria, delegated authority limits, mid-term adjustments and cover notes
• Claims notification and follow-up
• FCA rules (Consumer Duty, fair value, renewal pricing) and CPD compliance

Software and sales tools (list what you have used):

• Broker systems: Acturis, Open GI, SSP, Applied Epic
• Quoting and e-trading: insurer trading platforms and the rating tools in your broker system
• CRM and lead tools: Salesforce, HubSpot, diallers and web lead platforms
• Insurer portals and quoting systems for the insurers you place with (name them)
• E-signature and document tools: DocuSign, Adobe Sign
• Protection and health insurance comparison platforms (name the ones you use)

Sales skills managers actually want: working a lead list every morning, asking for referrals at the point of sale, explaining an excess to a nervous first-time homeowner, and not overselling cover a client will cancel in the cooling-off period. Show them in bullets with numbers rather than listing "communication" and "customer focus".

In the UK the authorisation sits with the firm, not with you: brokers and insurers are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and staff who sell or advise on insurance work under the firm's permissions. Your employer must make sure you are competent and that you complete at least 15 hours of relevant CPD a year, and some roles are certified under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR). Here is how to show it.

• CII qualifications, using the exact names: Award in General Insurance, Certificate in Insurance (Cert CII), Diploma in Insurance (Dip CII), Advanced Diploma in Insurance (ACII). Add the year, and for a qualification in progress, the units passed.
• Competence sign-off: say which areas your firm has assessed you as competent in (personal lines, commercial lines, protection, health) and since when.
• FCA status: if your role is certified, "FCA certified role (SM&CR)" is enough; employers request regulatory references from previous firms anyway. Do not describe yourself as "FCA licensed" or "FCA authorised" as an individual.
• Investment and mortgage advice: if you also advise on pensions or investments, list your Level 4 qualification (such as the CII Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning) and your Statement of Professional Standing; for mortgages, CeMAP or an equivalent.
• Protection and health: list insurer product training and any qualification your firm asked for, with the year. Firms set their own requirements here, often a CII or LIBF qualification.
• Chartered titles, spelled out once: Chartered Insurance Practitioner, Chartered Insurance Broker, Chartered Insurance Risk Manager, Chartered Financial Planner. Only list titles you have been awarded; for qualifications, "in progress" is fine if you have passed at least one unit.
• Education: a degree in any field is common but not required for most adviser roles. List it briefly. GCSEs including English and maths, plus a good sales or service record, are enough for many brokers and direct insurers.

Brokers and insurers hire people with no insurance background all the time, because they can teach the products but not the habit of selling. Many will pay for your first CII exams. Your CV needs to show three things: that you can pass the qualifications (or already have), that you have sold or served customers with numbers attached, and that you can follow a compliance-heavy process.

1. 1Start a qualification before you apply if you can; the CII Award in General Insurance is a short entry-level course. "CII Award in General Insurance, 2026" under your name moves you ahead of most applicants. If you are studying, write "CII exam booked for November 2026".
2. 2Write a three-line personal statement that names your qualification status, your sales or service background with one number, and the role you want.
3. 3Rewrite past jobs as sales and service evidence: retail (conversion rate, add-on sales, store card sign-ups), bank customer adviser (product referrals), call centre (calls a day, quality score, upsells), restaurant (average spend per head), estate agency or car sales (units and volume).
4. 4Add any exposure to regulated work: banking, pharmacy, healthcare reception, lettings. It shows you can handle rules and paperwork.
5. 5List software you know that maps to broker work: any CRM, Microsoft Office, e-signature tools, diallers, Spanish or another second language.
6. 6Keep it to one page if you can (two at most) and put education last unless you graduated within the past year.

One page for up to about 8 years as an adviser; two pages, which is common in the UK, if you manage a book over £4M, lead a team or hold several qualifications. No photo and no date of birth. Put your qualifications in your header, a personal statement with numbers, then experience, skills, qualifications and education. Insurers and large brokers run CVs through an applicant tracking system (ATS), so use the exact words from the advert.

• Mirror the product wording: "personal lines", "commercial lines", "motor", "home", "protection", "private medical insurance", "Cert CII".
• Mirror the role words: "adviser", "account handler", "account executive", "account manager", "customer service adviser", "broker" or "direct".
• Name the systems they name: Acturis, Open GI, SSP, Applied Epic, Salesforce, and the insurers if they list them.
• Include the metrics words: "premium", "retention", "cross-sell", "policies per client", "conversion rate", "book of business", "persistency" (protection), "Consumer Duty".
• Save as PDF unless the advert asks for Word, and use standard headings (Experience, Skills, Qualifications) so the software reads them.

Insurance broker or adviser? In the UK, a broker acts for the client and places business with many insurers, while a direct insurer's sales advisers sell only that insurer's products. Job titles vary (adviser, account handler, account executive, broker), so use the title the advert uses, and describe what you actually did.