Abstract

This scoping review synthesized the entrepreneurial competencies required of personal financial planners working in the life insurance business. The review mapped heterogeneous evidence relevant to advisory practice, competency development, professional standards, occupational expectations, and practitioner performance. The review process identified 301 records, removed 33 duplicates, screened 268 records, and assessed 183 full-text records for eligibility. After exclusions for generic entrepreneurship, education-pipeline studies, and topic mismatch or duplicate variants, 75 studies were retained; 36 were designated as core studies for deep synthesis. The retained literature yielded five higher-order themes: professional competency and standards frameworks, development and learning mechanisms, performance and business outcomes, retention and career sustainability, and advisory trust and long-term client relationships. A more detailed synthesis identified 24 entrepreneurial competency elements organized into 7 knowledge elements, 9 skill elements, and 8 personal attributes. Beyond mapping the field, the review clarifies how regulated professional expertise and entrepreneurial capability converge in this occupation. The review therefore provides a defensible conceptual foundation for curriculum design, competency-based development, and later model construction in the life insurance financial planning field.

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