How long must FAIS records be kept?

Advice records — the needs analysis, Record of Advice and disclosures — should be retained for at least five years, and kept retrievable in case of an audit or complaint.

Is a needs analysis required for short-term insurance?

You must establish the client’s needs and circumstances before recommending a product and record the basis of the advice. A documented needs analysis is how you evidence that.

What has to be disclosed to the client?

The FSP’s licence and relationships, how you are remunerated, and the material terms of the product — excesses, exclusions, waiting periods and underinsurance / averaging implications.

Do I have to disclose the actual amount of my commission?

Section 7 of the General Code requires details of the commission, fees and charges payable, and where the amount is known it should be stated rather than referenced — a reference to the insurer’s standard commission is a weak disclosure.

What if the client will not answer the needs-analysis questions?

Section 8(4) covers it: tell the client the information is incomplete, explain that this limits how appropriate the advice can be, and record that you did both. The limitation then forms part of the advice rather than a hole in the file.

Does every renewal need a fresh Record of Advice?

Not as a rule. But if the sums insured, the risk or the client’s circumstances have moved — or the renewal goes to another insurer, which makes it a replacement — the advice has been given again and the file needs to show it.

What does FAIS require about complaints?

An internal complaint-resolution procedure, clients being made aware of it, complaints handled within a reasonable period and recorded, and the client being told they may approach the FAIS Ombud.

/ CHKCHECKLIST

FAIS compliance checklist for insurance brokers

A practical, plain-language checklist of the FAIS obligations that touch every client file — the documents to keep, the disclosures to make, and the records to retain. It follows the order the work actually happens in: what has to be true before you advise, what the recommendation must record, what the file has to hold afterwards, and what changes at renewal or on a replacement. Use it as a per-client sanity check before you file.

Updated 19 September 2026

Before you give advice

01Confirm you (or the representative) are authorised for the product category under the FSP’s licence.
02Provide the client the FSP’s disclosure: licence details, product-supplier relationships, and how you are remunerated.
03Establish the client’s needs, objectives, risk profile and financial position (the needs analysis).

01Record the advice — the products considered, the product recommended, and why it meets the client’s identified needs (the Record of Advice).
02Disclose material terms: excesses, exclusions, waiting periods, averaging / underinsurance and replacement implications.
03Where you replace an existing policy, record the comparison and the reasons the replacement is in the client’s interest.

After — records to retain

01Keep the needs analysis, Record of Advice and disclosures for at least five years.
02Store client personal information securely and lawfully (POPIA).
03Keep the file retrievable — an audit or complaint can require it at any time.

Three items on this list that are easy to miss

Worked through in order, the checklist above is undramatic. In practice these three lines are often the ones absent when a file is read after a complaint, and none of them is about the advice being wrong:

Remuneration, in rands

Section 7 of the Code requires the client to be given details of the commission, fees and other charges payable — including the amount, where the amount is known. "Commission as per the schedule" is not a disclosure.

Why NOT the alternatives

A common gap: the Record of Advice motivates the recommended product well and never mentions what else was considered. Section 9(1)(b) asks for the products considered; the file has to show a choice was made, not simply that a product was sold.

The averaging conversation

That the client was told what happens on a partial loss if the sum insured is understated — and that the figure was theirs. Recorded nowhere, this reads afterwards as advice nobody gave.

The information you could not get — record the gap, not a silence

Clients decline to answer, and the Code plans for it. Section 8(4) of the General Code requires you to alert the client where you have not obtained the information the analysis needs, to explain that this limits how appropriate the advice can be, and to record that you did both. Done properly, the incompleteness becomes part of the advice — a bounded recommendation the client accepted. Left out, the file simply looks like nobody asked, and there is no way afterwards to tell the two apart.

At renewal — the checklist runs again, shorter

A renewal is not automatically a new advice event, but very little about a client stays still for twelve months. Before you let one roll:

01Have the sums insured kept up with the values at risk? An inflation-indexed building is not the same as a re-valued one.
02Has anything material changed — a new vehicle, a let portion, a home office, stock at a second premises, a business that has grown?
03Is the cover still the right cover, or have the client’s circumstances moved past it?
04Is the renewal going to a different insurer? Then it is a replacement under the 2020 Code definitions, and section 9(1)(d) applies with its comparison.
05Whatever the answers, the file should show the conversation happened — a dated note is enough where nothing changed.

Complaints: the part of FAIS with a clock on it

The General Code requires an FSP to maintain an internal complaint-resolution procedure, to make clients aware of it, and to deal with complaints within a reasonable period. The practical version is three things: a written procedure someone in the firm actually owns, a record of every complaint and what was done about it, and the client being told — at the point of complaining — that they can take it to the FAIS Ombud. A complaint logged and dealt with from day one is far easier to defend than one reconstructed later.

Where the duty actually sits

Section 13 of the FAIS Act requires an FSP to keep a register of its representatives and to take reasonable steps to ensure they comply with the Act — so a representative’s gap in the file is the FSP’s gap. In a small brokerage the same person is often both, which is why the checklist reads as personal discipline. It is not: the register of representatives, the supervision arrangements for anyone not yet fully competent, and the FSP’s own record of who was authorised for what and when are part of the same compliance surface — and they are what a supervisory visit asks for before it looks at a single client file.

Turn the checklist into the actual documents

Broker AI drafts the Record of Advice, needs analysis and comparison from the policy documents you upload, and keeps them in one searchable place — so the documents behind the checklist are drafted for you to review and finalise, per client.

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Frequently asked questions

How long must FAIS records be kept?: Advice records — the needs analysis, Record of Advice and disclosures — should be retained for at least five years, and kept retrievable in case of an audit or complaint.
Is a needs analysis required for short-term insurance?: You must establish the client’s needs and circumstances before recommending a product and record the basis of the advice. A documented needs analysis is how you evidence that.
What has to be disclosed to the client?: The FSP’s licence and relationships, how you are remunerated, and the material terms of the product — excesses, exclusions, waiting periods and underinsurance / averaging implications.
Do I have to disclose the actual amount of my commission?: Section 7 of the General Code requires details of the commission, fees and charges payable, and where the amount is known it should be stated rather than referenced — a reference to the insurer’s standard commission is a weak disclosure.
What if the client will not answer the needs-analysis questions?: Section 8(4) covers it: tell the client the information is incomplete, explain that this limits how appropriate the advice can be, and record that you did both. The limitation then forms part of the advice rather than a hole in the file.
Does every renewal need a fresh Record of Advice?: Not as a rule. But if the sums insured, the risk or the client’s circumstances have moved — or the renewal goes to another insurer, which makes it a replacement — the advice has been given again and the file needs to show it.
What does FAIS require about complaints?: An internal complaint-resolution procedure, clients being made aware of it, complaints handled within a reasonable period and recorded, and the client being told they may approach the FAIS Ombud.

This checklist is general information about FAIS, not legal or compliance advice.