R06 Case Study: How to Analyse the Pre-Released Case Study in Two Weeks

The R06 case study is the pre-release you receive from the CII two weeks before the exam: two written case studies about fictional clients, which the three-hour exam then asks short-answer questions on. You cannot take your copy into the exam, and the case studies on screen contain no new information, so the two weeks are for knowing those clients well enough to plan for them in note form. The CII’s own exam guide says it is “too late” by then to start general revision. This guide gives a day-by-day method for the 14 days: what to extract from each case, a fact-find template, the calculations to have ready, how to prepare options and recommendations, and how that work becomes marks on the day. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not affiliated with the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). Every exam fact below is from the CII’s own R06 unit page, syllabus, June 2026 exam guide, exam deadlines page and 2026/27 tax tables, read on 7 November 2026; the method and both examples are ours.

CII R06 unit page and R06 June 2026 exam guide, read 7 November 2026.

Try a short practice case study, marked point by point, before you plan your two weeks:

R06, Financial Planning Practice, is a core unit of the CII Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning, assessed by a written exam: Level 4, 30 CII credits, 100 study hours. The unit page describes the assessment as a “three hour exam comprising two written case studies on financial planning practice”, and says candidates receive the case studies two weeks before the sitting. They appear on the CII website and in RevisionMate.

The exam guide is clear on three points that shape how you should use the time. You may not take your pre-released copy into the exam. The case studies are shown on screen in the exam, and “there will not be any new or different information” in them. And the exam’s instructions are focused on the client objectives identified from the case studies. In other words, you know the clients in advance, but not the questions.

So the aim of the two weeks is not to guess the questions. It is to have every client fact, every likely calculation and a reasoned view on every objective ready, so that whatever you are asked, you are writing from preparation rather than reading the case for the first time.

The 2026/27 syllabus describes R06 as combining and applying learning content from all the other Diploma units (regulation and ethics, investment, tax, pensions and protection). It has five learning outcomes, and they make a good checklist for your analysis. The right-hand column is our reading of what each asks you to prepare from a case study.

Prepare for outcome 2 early. If a question asks what further information you would need, a list you built calmly on day three, with a note of why each item matters, is far easier to draw on than one you try to think of with the clock running.

The CII’s exam guide gives the outline: study the client circumstances, consider their objectives and other possible needs, look for technical areas to revise, practise key calculations such as income tax and inheritance tax liabilities, and work out possible solutions and how appropriate each might be to the client. The plan below puts those steps in order, with time for one timed paper. It treats both case studies together; if one client is much more complex, give that case more of each block.

Two habits make the method work. First, write everything down in the form you will use in the exam: short points, one idea per line. Second, keep a running list of technical points you were not sure about, and clear it during days 5 to 10 from your study texts, the tax tables and the providers’ technical pages, which the exam guide itself suggests.

Read each case study twice before you write anything: once for the story, once with a pen. Then fill a fact-find. The headings below follow the order an adviser’s fact-find usually takes; copy the table and use one column per client. A blank cell is useful information: it goes straight onto your gaps list.

Now separate three lists for each case. Stated objectives are what the client asks for; the exam’s instructions focus on these. Other needs are what a competent adviser would raise anyway: no will, cover that stops when the mortgage still runs, an emergency fund that is too small. Gaps are the facts you are missing. For each gap, note why it matters, in case a question asks you to explain its relevance as well as name it.

Rank the objectives. When cash is limited, clients cannot do everything, and a recommendation that ignores priority will not read as suitable. Write one line per objective: what, how much, by when, and how important it is to the client.

An invented mini-case, shorter than a real R06 case study, to show the extraction. Sam (41) and Ruth (39) are married with two children aged 6 and 3. Sam is a self-employed electrician earning about £58,000 a year; Ruth works part-time for a local authority. They have a £240,000 repayment mortgage with 22 years left and a level term policy of £150,000 on Sam’s life. Sam has a small personal pension he stopped paying into four years ago, and no income protection. Neither has a will. Their objectives: retire at 60, and help the children through university.

Notice how much of the analysis sits outside the two stated objectives: a plan for retirement at 60 that ignores Sam’s lack of income protection would not be suitable advice. The exam guide puts it the same way: consider the clients’ objectives “and look for other possible areas of need”.

Want to try this on a full case, with questions? The free short case study is marked point by point:

The exam guide names income tax and inheritance tax liabilities as calculations to practise during the two weeks. Do them for your clients now, with the CII tax tables for 2026/27 (for sittings to 31 August 2027), which are the tables you will see on screen in the exam (you may not bring your own). The exam guide says it is important to show all steps in a calculation, even if you have used a calculator, so practise writing the steps, not just the answer.

Typical things a case study’s facts let you work out in advance: each client’s income tax; whether income near £100,000 is losing personal allowance; how much pension contribution room the annual allowance leaves; inheritance tax if either client died now; the gap between cover and debts or dependants’ needs; and the monthly surplus that funds any recommendation.

An invented client, not from any CII paper. Paula is employed in England on a salary of £110,000 in 2026/27, with no other income. She is thinking about a personal pension contribution. Income tax only, using the CII tax tables 2026/27 (UK taxpayers excluding Scottish taxpayers).

The contribution cuts Paula’s income tax by £4,000. She pays £8,000, the provider claims £2,000 of basic rate relief, and the £4,000 tax saving brings her real cost down to £4,000 for £10,000 in her pension. That is the kind of figure worth having ready on day 7, together with the points around it: the contribution is well below the £60,000 standard annual allowance in the tables (assuming no other pension input uses it up and no restriction such as the money purchase annual allowance applies); the money is not available until she can draw her pension; and a salary sacrifice arrangement, if her employer offers one, would need different arithmetic. In the exam, set the steps out as above, line by line.

This is the heart of the analysis and maps to learning outcomes 3 to 5. For each objective and each need you found, write a short block:

Tie every point to the case. “An ISA is tax-efficient” earns little on its own; “an ISA keeps the money available if they need it before Sam can draw his pension” is a point about this client. Learning outcome 4 asks for “suitable” financial plans, and 4.1 for recommendations that ensure “good consumer outcomes”; the recommendations you prepare should read that way.

The CII treats its exam guides as mock papers. Each contains a full past paper with model answers and examiner comments, and the unit page lists the recent ones: October 2025, January, April and June 2026 at the time of writing. The exam guide’s advice for using them: study the cases over the two-week period as you would for the real exam, set yourself three clear hours, compare your answers with the model answers only when the time is up, then revise the weaknesses it shows.

Ideally you sit those papers before the pre-release arrives, so that the two weeks are free for your own clients. Day 11 is for one more timed sitting: questions you have not seen, on case studies you have read first, as the CII advises. Use a CII exam guide you kept back, or a practice R06 case study. The point is to test speed and note-form answering, not to learn new content.

Cut each client to a single page: the facts and figures you would otherwise have to look up, your ranked objectives, and your recommendation for each in three or four points. Read these pages until you can recall them without looking. You cannot take your copy of the case studies into the exam (check the CII’s exam rules for anything else you plan to bring), but the case studies are on screen in the exam, so you need to know the clients well, not memorise their details word for word.

On the last day, check the practical side. The exam guide strongly recommends the CII’s on-screen familiarisation test, which is set up differently from the multiple-choice exams. If you sit by remote invigilation, it also strongly advises taking the separate online tutorial test once your login details arrive and well before the exam day; strongly advises against using a laptop provided by your employer, as employer equipment typically conflicts with the remote invigilation software; and advises avoiding corporate Wi-Fi or any connection with firewalls you cannot control. It also notes that the platform no longer supports Windows 10 or macOS Ventura for any online testing.

The exam guide’s own advice on answering, in short: spend time in line with the marks shown for each part; read all parts of a question before answering any; answer the question set; use note form and short sentences; show every step of a calculation; and do not run over on one question, flag it and come back. Spelling and grammar do not lose marks.

Your preparation pays off here: the fact-find gives you the facts without rereading the case, the gaps list answers the “what further information” parts, the day-7 figures answer the calculation parts, and the day-10 blocks give you the advantages, disadvantages and justifications in ready-made points.

The next R06 sittings on the CII’s deadlines page are 19 January, 20 April and 6 July 2027, all examined on the 2026/27 syllabus; booking for the January sitting closes on 4 January 2027. A further sitting on 5 October 2027 falls after 31 August 2027, which the 2026/27 syllabus does not cover: check that sitting’s published syllabus, qualification updates and tax tables before relying on the figures here. Our separate R06 exam dates guide sets out every sitting, booking deadline and results date. Results, the 55% standard pass mark and what to do if you do not pass are covered in our R06 results guide.

Practising on case studies you have never seen is the closest thing to the exam itself. Our R06 case study pack has four original case studies laid out like the R06 paper, with typed answers marked point by point against model answers and your score against the 55% pass mark. They are not CII case studies.