Genovo Suitability Report Content Enhancements May 2022

Team Genovo

Given it feels like summer’s struggling to take hold at the moment, we thought we’d continue on a pace with our spring clean of the Genovo suitability report content. Having previously reviewed and enhanced the product and technical notes and the risk warnings, we’ve since taken on the (not insignificant) task of reviewing the content of all the other snippets in all the other sections of Genovo.

Just to reiterate, the standard Genovo content was never particularly broken. However, everything can always benefit from a bit of a polish and so, in summary, the over-arching aim of this project has been to take some focussed time to review the entire report content to ensure it:

• Is as clear and easy as possible for the reader to understand with the bare minimum of jargon used.
• Is as succinct and brief as possible to help reduce the length of the report, without compromising understanding or compliance expectations – a balancing act in itself!
• Avoids repetition or surplus content that serves no obvious purpose but to bulk out the report unnecessarily.
• Uses a consistent style, language and format.
• Seamlessly flows in all instances irrespective of the advice scenario and the sections included.

Other needs and planning considerations

As part of this release, we have also repurposed and extended the Other Needs and Shortfalls step in the Important Information section. Historically, this step was designed to allow users to highlight any other needs and shortfalls that the client may have that haven’t been addressed by the recommendations in their report, and confirm why not.

Moving forward, the step will continue to serve this purpose. However, you will also be able to use it to provide further information about any action (typically not involving a financial product) that you have recommended the client take to address the highlighted need or planning consideration – hence it’s new name ‘Other Needs and Planning Considerations‘.

We’ve also added a number of new standard advice options and reasons into this step to cover such topics / planning techniques as:

• General tax planning.
• Loan and debt management.
• A recommendation to make use of the Marriage Allowance.
• A recommendation to apply for individual or fixed protection.
• A recommendation to obtain a State Pension forecast.
• A recommendation to make use of the £3,000 annual exemption, amongst various others.

Given it’s new function, we’ve also added it into the Review Report 2.0 as an optional step.

Placing a protection plan in trust

It’s always been possible to recommend that a new protection plan is placed in trust via the Trust Recommendation step of the New Protection Recommendation section in Genovo. However, moving forward the selection of a trust in the Trust Recommendation field will automatically insert some explanatory text about the benefits of that type of trust and why it’s been selected in your report.

Appendix – Plan Comparison

Historically, when recommending replacement business in Genovo, a summary of the charges of the existing and recommended alternative plans has been included as standard at the top of the Appendix – Plan Comparison section. If you hadn’t already realised, the tables included here were simply clones of the Plan Charges tables included in the review and recommendation sections earlier in the report – resulting in obvious repetition.

Feedback overtime from an increasing number of our users has been that given this information is already included earlier in the report, it serves little purpose to also include these tables in the Appendix – Plan Comparison section; and hence we know a lot of our users have ended up hiding these snippets within their account; and to be honest, in hindsight, we’d agree!

Therefore, we have deactivated these snippets and as a result this content will no longer come out in in the Appendix – Plan Comparison section of reports.

Although the above snippets have been deactivated, you will still be able to access them via the Report Content Manager until 1 August 2022 just in case there is any custom content that you’ve added into them that you wish to pull out and add into another active snippet.

Recommendation Sections – Further Information

Much like the above, we have also deactivated all of the Further Info snippets at the bottom of the investment, pension and retirement income review sections because again, on review, we felt the content of these snippets provided little value except to bulk out the report unnecessarily.

Again, although these snippets have been deactivated you will still be able to access them via the Report Content Manager until 1 August 2022 when they will be removed permanently from the Report Content Manager.

Review Report 1.0

Although the Review Report 1.0 report type has remained available in Genovo, it has not been supported and has been archived since we introduced the Review Report 2.0.

The time has now come to formally decommission it. As of 1 August 2022 the Review Report 1.0 will be removed from Genovo, and from that date it will no longer be possible to:

• Create new reports using this report type.
• Edit or download existing reports of this report type.
• Clone or reassign existing reports of this report type.
• Use Report Templates of this report type to create new reports.

However, any existing reports that have been created using the Review Report 1.0 report type will continue to show in the client’s Report Library, and even after the 1 August deadline it will still be possible to convert these reports into a different report type, and then interact with and use them as normal.

For users who do have reports of a Review Report 1.0 report type that they wish to continue to use after the deadline, we would suggest converting:

• Those with review and recommendation sections included into Suitability Reports;
• And those with just review sections into Suitability Reports or Review Reports 2.0.

You’ll find a summary of the sections you’ll find in each report type here, and a summary of the steps you’ll find in each wizard section for each report type here.

Summary of updates and enhancements

Here’s a summary of all the updates and enhancements that have been applied to Genovo.

Report Content Manager

Report Type(s)	Section(s)	Snippet Name	Update / Enhancement
Various	Introduction	Title & Opening (Suitability Report) Title & Opening (Review Report 2.0) Title & Opening (Fund Switch Report) Title & Opening (Top up / Bed & ISA Report) Needs & Objectives (Limited Advice - Suitability Report) Objectives & Scope of Advice (Abridged Advice)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Review of Your Existing Investments	Further Info Heading Further Info (transfer & encash) Further Info (bed & pension) Further Info (Investment Strategy - Fund switch & rebalance) Further Info (Plan Comparison - Fund switch)	These snippets have been deactivated.
Suitability Report	Review of Your Existing Pension Plans	DB Pension Insistent Client Warning	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Review of Your Existing Pension Plans	Further Info Heading Further Info (pension switch & DB transfer) Further Info (Investment Strategy - Fund switch & rebalance) Further Info (Plan Comparison - Fund switch) Further Info (draw benefits) Further Info (take cash & transfer) Further Info (draw benefits comparison)	These snippets have been deactivated.
Suitability Report	Review of Your Existing Retirement Income Plans	Further Info Heading Further Info (annuity) Further Info (transfer) Further Info (Investment Strategy - Fund switch & rebalance) Further Info (Plan Comparison - Fund switch)	These snippets have been deactivated.
Suitability Report	New Pension Recommendation	Carry Forward Income in Retirement Nomination of Beneficiaries Cancellation Notice Cancellation (pension switch) Cancellation (DB pension transfer)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Drawing Benefits from Your Pension Fund	Nomination of Beneficiaries Cancellation Notice Cancellation (investment element) Cancellation (DB pension transfer)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	New Investment Recommendation	Trusts Absolute DGT Discretionary DGT Absolute Gift Trust Discretionary Gift Trust Absolute Loan Trust Discretionary Loan Trust Discretionary Retained Interest Trust Probate Trust Key Disadvantages & Tax Implications Cancellation Notice Cancellation (ISA transfer) Cancellation Notice (VCT/EIS/AIM/BPR)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	New Protection Recommendation	Trusts Cancellation Notice General Cancellation Notice Group Protection	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	New Protection Recommendation	Discretionary Trust Absolute Trust Split Trust Business Trust	These new snippets will be automatically triggered when the corresponding trust is selected in the Trusts step.
Suitability Report	Mortgage Recommendation	Interest-only Mortgage Warning Special Initial Interest Rate Warning Affordability Buy to Let Affordability Insurance (Standard Mortgage)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Mortgage Recommendation	Insurance (RIO mortgage)	This new snippet will be automatically triggered when a RIO Mortgage is recommended.
Various	Important Information	Reviews & Ongoing Service (Suitability Report) Review of Service (Review Report 2.0) Review of Service (Continued Suitability Report) Cost of Advice and Service Client Classification	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report Review Report 2.0	Important Information	Other Needs & Planning Considerations	The content has been updated to reflect the repurposed step.
Suitability Report Top-up / Bed & ISA Continued Suitability Report	Adviser / Client Declaration	Title & Adviser Declaration Client Declaration (Single Private) Client Declaration (Multiple Private) Client Declaration (Corporate and Trust)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Review Report 2.0 Fund Switch	Authority to Proceed	Title & Opening Client Signoff (Single Private) Client Signoff (Multiple Private) Client Signoff (Corporate and Trust)	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Appendix - Plan Comparison	Charges Subtitle Pension Review Charges Retirement Income Review Charges Investment Review Charges Recommended Alternative Subtitle Pension Recommendation Charges Drawing Pension Benefits Charges Investment Recommendation Charges	These snippets have been deactivated.
Suitability Report	Appendix – DB Pension Transfer Value Analysis	Title & Opening Comparison of Estimated Pension Benefits Critical Yield Hurdle Rate Drawdown Income Comparison of Death Benefits Important Notes	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.
Suitability Report	Appendix – Glossary of Terms	Pensions Defined Benefit Pension Annuities Investment-linked Annuity Drawdown Investment-related Protection Products Long Term Care Annuity Mortgages Equity Release	The content has been reviewed and enhanced.

* Although the Plan Comparison and Further Info snippets have been deactivated, they will remain available via the Report Content Manager so you can extract any custom content that you may have added to them and wish to keep before they are permanently removed on 1 August 2022.

Please remember the changes we make to the report template will only take effect in your reports automatically if the Genovo version of the snippet is selected as active in your Report Content Manager (it is by default).  For more information about the Report Content Manager and updating of snippets check out this video tutorial.

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