Is a Financial Needs Analysis compulsory under FAIS?

The analysis is; the name is not. Section 8(1)(b) of the General Code of Conduct requires a provider, before giving advice, to conduct an analysis based on the information obtained under section 8(1)(a). Whether you call the written-up result an FNA, a needs analysis or a Risk Analysis Report makes no difference to the duty.

Do I need an FNA for short-term insurance?

Yes. Section 8 applies to advice on any financial product, including short-term insurance. Section 8(4) lets you narrow the analysis where the client asked you to focus on specific needs, agreed a narrower scope, or declined to give information — but you must then alert the client that the advice may be limited, and record that in the Record of Advice.

Is the Risk Analysis Report the same as the FNA?

In substance, yes. The Risk Analysis Report is a name for the documented section 8 analysis, with the client’s risk profile written up alongside the needs and objectives. Neither term appears in the Code.

Can one document be both the FNA and the ROA?

It can, if it contains everything section 9(1) requires — the summary of the information relied on, the products considered, the recommendation with reasons, and the replacement comparison where applicable — and the client receives the whole document in writing under section 9(2). Most brokers keep them separate so the ROA stays readable.

Does a quote request need an FNA?

If you give advice — a recommendation, guidance or a proposal of a financial nature — section 8 applies and the analysis is required. Where the client instructs a specific product and you make no recommendation, section 8 does not apply; but where the client elects to receive more limited advice than you are able to give, section 8(4)(c) requires you to alert them to the clear existence of any risk and to advise them to consider whether the product is appropriate.

Which comes first in the file?

The FNA, because section 8(1) says “prior to providing a client with advice”. The Record of Advice comes after the advice and is only required where a transaction is concluded as a result of it (the proviso to section 9(1)). A file that shows the ROA dated before the analysis is the file the Ombud will ask about.

/ S.8 v S.9GUIDE

Record of Advice vs Financial Needs Analysis

The Financial Needs Analysis is what you do before you advise; the Record of Advice is what you write after. Section 8 of the FAIS General Code of Conduct requires a provider, before giving advice, to obtain information about the client’s needs and objectives, financial situation, risk profile and product knowledge, and to conduct an analysis on it — that analysis is the FNA. Section 9 requires a record of the advice that was then given, reflecting the basis on which it was given — that is the ROA. The Code uses neither name. One is the input, the other is the output, and the FAIS Ombud reads them together: an ROA with no analysis behind it is a recommendation with no basis, and an analysis with no ROA is advice with no record.

Reviewed 7 September 2026 · Broker AI team

The short answer, side by side

Three documents brokers routinely confuse, and what the Code actually asks of each:

FNA

Financial Needs Analysis

When: before advice. Source: section 8(1)(a)–(b). What it holds: the information obtained about the client’s needs and objectives, financial situation, risk profile and financial product knowledge and experience, and the analysis conducted on it for the purposes of the advice. Output: the product or products identified as appropriate under section 8(1)(c).

ROA

Record of Advice

When: after advice, where a transaction results. Source: section 9(1). What it holds: a brief summary of the information and material the advice was based on; the products considered; the product recommended and why it is likely to satisfy the identified needs and objectives; and, for a replacement, the comparison and reasons. Given to the client in writing under section 9(2).

RAR

Risk Analysis Report

Not a Code term. It is the industry’s (and Broker AI’s) name for the documented FNA and risk profile — the section 8 analysis written up as a report. If your RAR captures the section 8(1)(a) information and the analysis, it is your FNA; it is never your ROA.

What the Code actually calls them

Search the General Code of Conduct as amended to Board Notice 706 of 26 June 2020 and neither “financial needs analysis” nor “risk analysis report” appears. What appears is section 8(1), headed Suitability: a provider must, prior to providing a client with advice, (a) obtain from the client such information regarding the client’s needs and objectives, financial situation, risk profile and financial product knowledge and experience as is necessary to provide appropriate advice — advice that takes into account the client’s ability to bear the costs and risks of the product and the extent of their experience and knowledge to understand those risks; (b) conduct an analysis, for purposes of the advice, based on the information obtained; and (c) identify the product or products appropriate to the client’s risk profile and financial needs. Paragraph (a) was substituted in 2020 and is wider than the 2003 wording, which spoke of the client’s financial situation, financial product experience and objectives: “needs”, “risk profile” and product “knowledge” are now named heads of information, not implied ones. The FNA is the name the industry gave to steps (a) and (b); the risk profile is one of the four things it must establish.

Where the FNA ends and the ROA begins

Section 9(1)(a) is the bridge. The record of advice must contain “a brief summary of the information and material on which the advice was based” — a summary of the FNA, not a repeat of it. The ROA then does what the FNA cannot: it names the products considered, the product recommended, and the reason the recommendation is likely to satisfy the needs and objectives the FNA identified. The FNA is the evidence that the needs were established; the ROA is the evidence that the advice followed from them. In practice:

01The FNA lives in the file, in whatever form you gathered it — a questionnaire, a fact-find, a risk-profile tool’s output, notes of the conversation, the schedules and existing policies you read. It does not have to be a single document.
02The ROA is one document, and the client must receive a copy in writing (section 9(2)). It opens with the section 9(1)(a) summary — two or three sentences on what you were told and what you relied on — and spends its length on 9(1)(b), (c) and, where relevant, (d).
03A single document can be both, provided the section 9 elements are all present and the whole document goes to the client. Most brokers keep them separate because the FNA carries information the ROA only needs to summarise.
04Keep both for five years after the product terminates or the service is rendered (Code section 3(2) with FAIS Act section 18), and be able to produce them within seven days of the regulator’s request.

Limited-scope advice: section 8(4) lets you narrow the FNA, not skip it

Since 2020, section 8(4)(a) lets a provider take into account, when deciding how much client information is needed, (i) objectives or needs the client explicitly asked you to focus on or not to focus on, (ii) objectives or needs you and the client explicitly agreed to focus on or leave out, (iii) surrounding circumstances that make it clear the analysis can reasonably be expected to focus only on specific needs, and (iv) the fact that the client explicitly declined to provide information you requested. That is the Code’s answer to “the client only wanted a quote on the car”. It comes with a duty: under section 8(4)(b) you must alert the client, as soon as reasonably possible, that the advice may be limited in appropriateness because of those circumstances, and that they should consider on their own whether it suits their objectives, financial situation and needs. Record the limitation and the alert in the ROA — it is part of the basis on which the advice was given, and it is what protects you when the uninsured risk you were asked not to look at materialises.

Short-term insurance: what the FNA looks like

The FNA vocabulary comes from investment and life advice, which is why short-term brokers often assume it does not apply to them. Section 8 applies to all advice on any financial product. For personal lines and commercial short-term cover the four heads of section 8(1)(a) translate into questions you already ask:

Needs and objectives

What the client wants covered, at what value (replacement, market, agreed), against which perils, and what they want to spend. Sums insured and how each was arrived at.

Financial situation

Affordability of the premium and of the excess structure; the client’s ability to carry an uninsured or under-insured loss — the section 8(1)(a)(i) “ability to financially bear any costs or risks” test.

Risk profile

For short-term cover this is less an attitude questionnaire than the facts that change the risk: security, use, location, drivers, claims history, existing cover, and how much excess the client is prepared to self-insure.

Knowledge and experience

Whether the client understands average, excesses, warranties and exclusions — the section 8(1)(a)(ii) test, and the reason section 8(2) requires you to take reasonable steps to ensure they understand the advice.

Where the file fails

The recurring shapes in Ombud determinations:

01No FNA at all — the client asked for a quote, a quote was given, and it is later argued to have been advice. If you recommended, section 8 applied; if you did not, the file should show the client instructed a product with no recommendation, and the section 8(4)(c) alert where the client chose to receive less advice than you could give.
02An ROA that re-types the FNA. Pages of the client’s circumstances, and one line of recommendation. Section 9(1)(a) asks for a brief summary; the weight belongs in the products considered and the reasons.
03An ROA with no FNA behind it. The recommendation reads well, but nothing in the file shows what needs it was answering. That is the gap the Ombud tests first.
04A risk profile copied from a tool without reconciliation. Tolerance, capacity and the risk the objective requires are three different things; a single score that does not say which it measured is not an analysis.
05Limited scope, no alert. The client asked you to look only at the car; the file does not say so and does not record the section 8(4)(b) warning.

Draft both from the documents you already have

Broker AI reads the client’s schedules, existing policies and the information you captured, structures the needs analysis and risk profile as a Risk Analysis Report, and drafts the Record of Advice on top of it — the section 9(1)(a) summary, the products considered, the recommendation and the reasons — for you to review, sign and send. Personal lines, commercial lines and life.

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Frequently asked questions

Is a Financial Needs Analysis compulsory under FAIS?: The analysis is; the name is not. Section 8(1)(b) of the General Code of Conduct requires a provider, before giving advice, to conduct an analysis based on the information obtained under section 8(1)(a). Whether you call the written-up result an FNA, a needs analysis or a Risk Analysis Report makes no difference to the duty.
Do I need an FNA for short-term insurance?: Yes. Section 8 applies to advice on any financial product, including short-term insurance. Section 8(4) lets you narrow the analysis where the client asked you to focus on specific needs, agreed a narrower scope, or declined to give information — but you must then alert the client that the advice may be limited, and record that in the Record of Advice.
Is the Risk Analysis Report the same as the FNA?: In substance, yes. The Risk Analysis Report is a name for the documented section 8 analysis, with the client’s risk profile written up alongside the needs and objectives. Neither term appears in the Code.
Can one document be both the FNA and the ROA?: It can, if it contains everything section 9(1) requires — the summary of the information relied on, the products considered, the recommendation with reasons, and the replacement comparison where applicable — and the client receives the whole document in writing under section 9(2). Most brokers keep them separate so the ROA stays readable.
Does a quote request need an FNA?: If you give advice — a recommendation, guidance or a proposal of a financial nature — section 8 applies and the analysis is required. Where the client instructs a specific product and you make no recommendation, section 8 does not apply; but where the client elects to receive more limited advice than you are able to give, section 8(4)(c) requires you to alert them to the clear existence of any risk and to advise them to consider whether the product is appropriate.
Which comes first in the file?: The FNA, because section 8(1) says “prior to providing a client with advice”. The Record of Advice comes after the advice and is only required where a transaction is concluded as a result of it (the proviso to section 9(1)). A file that shows the ROA dated before the analysis is the file the Ombud will ask about.

This page is general information about FAIS advice records, not legal or compliance advice. Section references are to Board Notice 80 of 2003 as amended to Board Notice 706 of 26 June 2020; check the current text before relying on it.