Using the FSCS Investment Protection Checker

The FSCS Investment Protection Checker is a free tool on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme's website that tells you whether a firm, and the activity it is carrying out for you, is covered by the compensation scheme if that firm fails. You search by firm name or reference number, and the results are based on the FCA's Financial Services Register¹.

It answers one question: if this firm went bust, could you claim compensation? It does not tell you whether an investment is any good, suitable, or likely to make money. The FSCS states plainly that it does not pay compensation if your investment does not perform as well as you hoped³.

The scheme covers a range of financial products if a UK-authorised financial firm fails, including deposits, insurance, investments, pensions and mortgage advice⁴. For eligible deposits the limit is £120,000 per eligible person, per firm, and compensation is normally paid automatically⁵. For investments, the scheme covers losses from bad or misleading advice, negligent management of investments, misrepresentation or fraud, not market losses³.

What the FSCS Investment Protection Checker does

The checker sits inside the FSCS's wider "check your money is protected" tool. You enter a firm's name or its firm reference number, and it returns what protection applies to the products that firm offers. Results are based on the FCA's Financial Services Register, which you can also search yourself to check whether a firm is authorised².

Two things follow from that. First, the checker is only as good as the register entry behind it, so a firm that is not authorised, or whose permission does not cover the activity you are discussing, will not come back as protected. Second, protection applies at firm level and may be shared across brands under the same authorisation, which matters if you hold money in more than one brand that sits under a single licence¹.

The scheme itself is broad in scope. FSCS covers deposits, insurance, investments, pensions, mortgage advice and certain other regulated services when a UK-authorised financial firm fails⁴. It is independent, free and funded by the financial services industry, not by consumers⁷. It also protects mortgage advice, and it has protected investment claims since 28 August 1988⁸.

What the checker is not is a quality test. It will not tell you whether a fund is well run, whether a platform's fees are competitive, or whether an investment suits your circumstances. It tells you where you stand if the firm behind the product fails.

How to use the checker on an investment

The FSCS's own guidance is to check before you sign up to anything, so that you know how much of your money the scheme can protect¹⁰. The process is short.

1. Find the firm's name or firm reference number. The FCA register shows what a firm is allowed to do and whether it is still trading⁵.
2. Search the checker and read the result for the specific activity, not just the firm.
3. If the result is unclear, ask the firm directly to confirm that the activity it is carrying out for you is a regulated activity, and under what circumstances FSCS protection would apply if the firm failed⁵.
4. Ask three questions of any provider: is this investment product covered by FSCS, how much of my money is protected, and what would happen to my money if something happened to the business⁵.
5. If you are dealing with an adviser, ask whether FSCS protects financial advice, what happens if the firm gives you bad advice and fails, and whether the products it recommends are protected if the provider fails⁵.

Alongside the FSCS checker, two FCA tools are worth knowing about. The FCA's ScamSmart Investment Checker shows whether an approach could be a scam, and the FCA Firm Checker shows whether a company has been cloned¹¹. A cloned firm will often use the details of a genuinely authorised business, so a clean-looking register entry is not enough on its own.

Investments the checker may show as unprotected

Several common situations come back unprotected, and they are worth knowing before you commit money.

Unregulated investments. If you put money into an unregulated investment, you will not be covered by the FSCS, unless the investment was the result of negligent advice from an independent financial adviser¹². That distinction is the whole point: the scheme compensates for the advice, not for the product.

Peer-to-peer and crowdfunding. The FSCS does not cover investments in peer-to-peer loans, and its cover in this area is restricted to losses arising from bad advice, not the platform failing¹³. Platforms in this market say so themselves: one states that your investment is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme¹⁵, and another that the scheme does not cover its council investments¹⁴.

E-money and payment firms. The scheme cannot protect you if an e-money firm or payment services firm fails². The FCA made the same point when Premier Payment Solutions Ltd entered liquidation, stating that the FSCS only applies to certain types of activity and does not cover payment services¹⁶.

Poor performance. Compensation is not paid if an investment does not perform as well as hoped³. The FCA's rules for high-risk investments say the same thing in the risk warnings consumers see: protection from the FSCS, in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance¹⁸.

Some savings products. The checker will find results for cash deposits, but not investments or savings products structured as long-term contracts of insurance, as offered by some mutual insurers¹. Those may be protected under insurance protection instead, and mutual insurers do not appear in the checker at all, except credit unions that can take deposits².

Where the firm still holds your investments. For a stocks and shares ISA, the protection covers the company holding your investments rather than losses from the investments themselves¹⁹. That is a meaningful distinction: the scheme steps in if the firm fails, not if the market falls.

Does the checker tell me whether an investment is a good one?

No, and the distinction matters more than it first appears. The checker answers a question about the firm and the activity. It says nothing about whether the investment is suitable for you, what it costs, or how it is likely to perform.

The FSCS is explicit that it does not pay compensation for disappointing returns³. A protected investment can still lose you money, and the protection will not respond. What it responds to is the firm failing, or the advice being bad or misleading, or the management of your investments being negligent, or misrepresentation, or fraud³.

That is why the questions to ask a provider are about coverage and failure, not about returns: is this product covered, how much of my money is protected, and what happens to it if the provider's business fails⁵. If you want to understand what an investment actually is before checking its protection, the investing guide covers the different types of product and how they work.

Does the checker cover ISAs and pensions?

Partly, and the answer differs by product.

For cash, the checker covers deposits, current accounts and savings accounts¹. The Bank of England lists the same group as current accounts, savings accounts, cash ISAs and savings bonds²⁰. A bank's own guidance describes the scheme as protecting money in UK-regulated savings accounts, cash ISAs and current accounts, covering banks, building societies and credit unions regulated in the UK²¹.

For investments held in a stocks and shares ISA, the position is different: the protection covers the company holding your investments, not losses from the investments themselves¹⁹. The FSCS publishes a separate guide to investment protection for this side of the picture⁵.

For pensions, the scheme can generally protect pensions provided by UK-regulated insurers, as long as they qualify as contracts of long-term insurance²². It also protects pension advice, so compensation can be paid if an adviser gives bad pension advice and then fails²³. The FSCS has a tool on its website that allows you to see what protection applies to your pension²⁴, and it publishes a guide to pension protection with questions to ask¹⁰.

If you are getting a pension, or thinking of changing it, the FSCS suggests asking the provider whether the scheme protects your pension, how much of your pot is protected, whether other protections apply, whether you are still protected if you buy an annuity, what happens if you buy other products with your pot, what would happen to your pension if something happened to the business, and whether a transfer in would also be protected¹⁰.

Where to get help if an investment is not covered

An unprotected result is not the end of the process. It is the point at which you ask more questions.

Start with the firm. Ask it to confirm that the activity it is carrying out for you is a regulated activity, and under what circumstances FSCS protection would apply if the firm failed⁵. Ask how much of your money is protected and what would happen to it if the provider's business failed⁵. If you are dealing with an adviser, ask whether the scheme protects the advice, what happens if the firm gives bad advice and fails, and whether the products it recommends are protected if the provider fails⁵. For pensions, the FSCS publishes a set of key questions to put to any pension provider¹⁰.

If the answers do not add up, or the firm is evasive, treat that as a warning sign rather than a gap in your understanding. The FCA's ScamSmart Investment Checker and Firm Checker are the two tools to use next¹¹.

Where a firm has already failed, the FSCS is a free service and you can claim directly⁷. It determines eligibility using the PRA Depositor Protection Rules in the PRA Rulebook²⁶, and for deposits it compensates automatically, with no action needed from the customer⁶. For investment claims, the process starts with the FSCS's own claim pages²⁵.

If your complaint is about the advice you were given rather than the firm's failure, the bad investment advice page sets out how mis-selling claims work, and investment scams covers what to do if you have been targeted. For the wider picture of what the scheme does and does not cover, see what happens if an investment platform or pension provider fails.