Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

Equality, diversity & inclusion (EDI) is at the heart of all that the CII does. The CII's EDI vision being based on the premise that: ‘Every person counts and matters in keeping our sector moving, growing and working by creating an inclusive environment for all by, inspiring, engaging, communicating and involving all stakeholders.’

’You can learn more about diversity and making your institute more diverse by reading through the PowerPoint presentations and documents below :

You should ensure your council understands and, if necessary, endorces an equality and diversity policy for your local institute, your policy should be displayed on your website. (It is also an important part of your accreditation renewal for events.) Your institute should be collating an equality check list for each event it delivers to members locally.

The CII has recently developed the documents and videos below to help staff, stakeholders and members understand the importance of diversity not just because it is the right thing to do, but because of the positive impact on our businesses, the sector as a whole and society in general.

Diversity in Insurance video can be viewed here.

CII Values video can be viewed here.

The Equality Act 2010 replaced the previous equalities legislation that evolved over the preceding 45 years. It replaced nine statutes (including The Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Acts 1975 and 2000, the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005) and over 100 other pieces of legislation.

The protected characteristics under Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 are:

For additional information on each of the protect characteristics please click here.

Black History Month podcast - October 2023

The CII values and respects inclusion and diversity and strives in all its activities to take account of and reflect the interests of all the people it serves.

Diversity values the differences which exist between people. These differences are embraced to promote an environment where everyone’s characteristics are valued, respected and fully utilised.

Equality is a shorthand term referring to the range of work aimed at ensuring the full and fair participation of marginalized or under-represented groups, where these groups may be excluded from full and fair participation as a result of discrimination and disadvantage, or other barriers. This has a particular reference to the protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act 2010 which are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

What is an EIIA?

An Equality Inclusion Impact Assessment (EIIA) is a tool aimed at improving policy development and implementation by ensuring that individuals and teams think carefully about the likely impact of their work on different groups. It involves anticipating the effects of policies, procedures, and functions on different groups and making sure that any negative impacts are eliminated or minimised and opportunities for promoting and advancing equality and diversity are maximised.

Why should we complete EIIAs?

EIIAs, although not a legal requirement, are an extremely useful mechanism for:

A. preventing any potential discrimination before it occurs;

B. ensuring that everything your organisation does is as inclusive as possible;

C. providing a defence if a discrimination claim is made against the CII.

More information and an EIIA form can be downloaded below.

As the CII continues their equality, diversity and inclusion journey, the language we use to describe identities can be used to galvanise inclusion and create a more welcoming environment for our local institute network.

Reflecting on the way we communicate means making the effort to understand the way that language unconsciously makes assumptions about people and reinforces dominant norms.

The guide below is intended to act as a point of reference for CII colleagues and stakeholders to help identify appropriate language and provides practical examples of preferred terms and phrases applicable to both oral and written communications. It is not by any means exhaustive or definitive, as language is a live thing that continuously evolves and appropriate terminology changes as culture and society shifts.

Offensive language includes words and phrases that:

The focus of these guidelines is not on protected characteristics, but on situations in which non-inclusive terms can inadvertently infiltrate communication.

As it happens, most of these situations revolve around protected characteristics.

The guide can be downloaded below.