The FCA’s supervision hub has been in touch to report a common reporting error made by firms in respect of ‘No/Non-Renewal of PII Cover’.

These errors typically take two forms:

1. The RMA-E return is a 6 monthly return, and so, a firm will renew their PII cover and tick the box when asked if PII cover has been renewed. However, the firm will then receive the same return 6 months later, where they are again prompted to tick whether they have renewed their PII cover. Often, the firm will not tick this box, as they confirmed that they had renewed their PII cover in the RMA-E return which they filled out 6 months ago. This then generates a ‘No/Non-renewal of PII cover’ case, which is unnecessary as the firm does in fact hold PII cover. So, firms should be ticking the box to confirm that they have renewed their PII policy, even if the annual renewal was performed in the previous 6-month period.
2. The second manifestation of this error comes from confusion over what constitutes renewal. This occurs where a firm extends their PII cover, but does not realise that this also counts as renewal, such that when they are asked on the RMA-E return whether they have renewed their PII cover, they do not tick the box to indicate they have renewed their PII cover. This also results in a case being generated. So, if the firm has extended their PII cover they should report that as a renewal of PII Cover.

The FCA hopes that by sharing information on high-volume cases with a straightforward fix, it will pre-emptively reduce caseloads and therefore free up time for the supervision hub to deal with more complex issues. If firms have any questions, please contact [email protected].