7th Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Awards 2022

Ms Aung believes that serving others is her mission. She became a dentist in 2008 and joined the insurance industry in 2020 after seeing her mother-in-law struggle financially to provide medical care for her husband.

Her eagerness to make a positive change led her to become a life insurance agent. She believes that life insurance is not just a financial product but is a sustained effort towards a better future for Myanmar families.

Starting her career in 2020, she was awarded rookie manager of the month the very first month she joined AIA. In less than six months, she was recognised again as manager of the month. That same year, amidst the COVID pandemic, she achieved MDRT and COT, securing over 1,000 clients with a health insurance plan.

She provides localised, well-researched advice and customised plans to meet client needs. As a passionate advocate for over 1,000 families she serves, she also works with new potential customers struggling with their financial planning to help them achieve their financial security.

She is also a certified business coach. To advance women’s welfare and development, she regularly volunteers with organisations such as Myanmar Women Entrepreneur Association, Myanmar Women Entrepreneur Network and the Rotary Club of Mandalay. She also continues to also volunteer as a dentist.

Her coaching experience has been a strength as a financial adviser. She helps customers manage their risks and works closely with them to meet their goals and financial plans. She continues to reach out to those who are not as privileged, raising awareness about financial literacy and how to protect their families.

A CEO of her own successful advertising agency, Ms Tran went into financial advisory after she faced difficulty finding insurance for her son who had earlier recovered from a kidney illness. She enrolled into Manulife’s Initial Training course to gain knowledge and find a solution for her son, but also found a new passion and an opportunity to help others.

With exceptional leadership skills and a business-savvy mind, she quickly rose up the ranks at Manulife. Within two years, she had grown her team from five to 84 and helped them achieve more than VND8.7bn ($372,272) in APE in 2021, a 90% y-o-y growth rate.

Under her guidance, 20% of the team qualified for titles in 2021, including five MDRTs, three Masters of Building Agency (MBAs) and nine FCs. Hers was the top ranked team in the CMC17 area in terms of MDRT members.

During that period, she continued to lead by example and achieved MDRT status with VND1.05bn in FYP, graduated as Manulife Vietnam’s MBA and reached platinum status as a Manulife FC.

She was promoted four times in less than two years, from an out-of-industry manager (November 2019) to unit manager (January 2020), senior unit manager (June 2020), district manager (January 2021), and senior district manager (June 2021).

The pandemic also taught her to show empathy as a leader and build confidence in the team. Her innovative ‘Collection of Rejections’ project in 2021 encouraged advisers to think differently about rejections. Flipping the concept of rejection on its head and making it a positive experience, she shifted her teams’ thinking away from what they lost out on to focus instead on what lies ahead.

The project resulted in more than 3,000 customers being approached and 230 policies sold, while also building brand awareness and a greater understanding of insurance for every person who rejected a sale.

Throughout the pandemic and lockdowns, she found ways to connect with the community by giving back through her many charitable initiatives. During the past year, she raised around VND250m for disadvantaged patients in a hospital. From 2019 to 2021, she raised nearly VND1bn for causes such as the Central Vietnam Food Relief, providing warm-clothing for children in need and sharing Mid-Autumn Festival gifts for children with disabilities.

Ms Eakwaree joined Krungthai Bank in 2013. In mid-2019, to further professionalise the bank’s sales force, Krungthai Bank launched a new distribution sales force model of bancassurance called the ‘financial planner’ (FP) model. She was one of the first employees to pass the exams and become a successful FP.

With a persistency level of 93.5 % in December 2021, she was awarded ‘Top Seller of the Year’, AXA Prime FP, an AXA global certificate recognising the top sales agents in the world. This is testament to her strong work ethic and commitment to her customers.

She was also awarded ‘Hall of Fame’ top insurance seller of the year 2021 and received the award for generating the highest revenue – THB500,000 to 10m per case ($15,200 to $303,000) – at Krungthai Bank. In terms of investment products, she also received the top seller of fund investment products, over THB1bn a year in the region.

Many of her peers and associates regard her as a mentor, respect her as an inspiring visionary, and know her to be a leader with a big heart. Her ability to galvanise the entire team towards a shared vision is remarkable.

Her active involvement with every FP has earned her the respect of her team and peers. Several have attributed their success to her active involvement in coaching and guidance. She has done several speaking engagements at the bank about improving customer relationships and selling techniques.

Her strong sense of goodwill and purpose has encouraged her to seek out clients who cannot afford such financial planning services such as the Roi-et foundation that support children’s communities, hospitals and help renovate temples in Thailand and overseas.

Apart from the qualifications and skillsets she possesses, social responsibility and public welfare establishments are an important component of her career. She regularly donates to education charities and is a member of an educational foundation in Roi-et. She is determined to give back to society to the best of her capacity and serve the community that has helped her become the person she is today.

She has proved very popular amongst all FPs not just for these inspiring new initiatives, but she is also always very willing to share her expertise, knowledge, and data about financial planning so her colleagues can improve their sales targets.

AIA Singapore empowers its insurance representatives to provide one stop solutions to help companies and their workforce in the area of employee’s benefits.

The insurer uses proprietary technology, eBenefits and MAIA chatbot. The company is the only employee benefits insurer that actively requests customers to provide realtime satisfaction rankings.

During 2021 the insurer focused its initiatives to empower its insurance representatives to provide corporate customers special complimentary coverage for over 2.6m customers. This ensured that the customers who suffered from COVID-19 received financial help for their medical bills.

AIA Singapore also provided end to end mental wellness support to its customers by way of complimentary ‘resilience mindset’ programme for mental health insurance supported by psychologists and psychiatrists.

The insurer expanded its teleconsultation service into complete telehealth services and made healthcare services available to its 400,000 outpatient customers. In 2021 these services expanded to telehealth offerings beyond general practitioner consultations by adding home based health screenings, paediatric, psychologist and psychiatric consultations. The teleconsultations in 2021 increased by 250% as compared with 2020.

The company brought in eBenefits that included mobile-friendly online portal and app that provided employees easy and secure access to insurance claims submission and their policy information.

The insurer also enhanced its eBenefits Intermediary and HR portal, providing the agents with a one-stop platform to update member enrolment, download invoices, analyse claims statistics and issue electronic letter of guarantee thus allowing for a more seamless management of employee benefits programmes.

The personalised case management provided through Teladoc partnership ensured customers with serious medical conditions being able to tap into a global network of over 50,000 specialists to provide a second opinion on diagnosis and treatment.

Due to a diversified bancassurance model, HSBC Life’s 2021 HK annualised new premiums increased 20% year-on-year to deliver an overall market share of 17.4% and led to HSBC regaining top position as the leading bancassurer in Hong Kong and a market share of 30.4%.

Despite the challenges faced under COVID-19 and restrictions, the partnership between the bank and HSBC Life has responded to the challenges with agility and customer centricity. HSBC has been able to continue necessary insurance conversations with customers, protect their long-term futures, maintain policies and offer the right-fit diversified solutions across wealth and personal banking, high-networth customers as well as commercial clients with innovative digital capabilities.

Online customer service and insurance applications were made available through virtual tools like virtually-enabled meetings (VEMs) so customers can access insurance services from their preferred locations, providing greater flexibility and increased access points both within and outside branch opening hours. Close to 3,000 VEMs were conducted in 2021 covering HSBC’s full range of solutions.

Over 16,700 appointments were made in 2021 through remote service bookings. Customers can choose when and how they interact with financial advisers, be it through meeting at their own work locations, branches, video conferencing or via ‘phone calls.

Cashless medical video consultation was launched on HSBC Life Benefits+ with an NPS score of 67, providing convenience for customers to consult a medical doctor’s advice without leaving their homes; and product brochures and factsheets on HSBC’s insurance dashboard and new eStatements for insurance policies have helped customers access policy information digitally via personal internet banking and mobile banking.

The cemented partnership between the bank and HSBC Life’s has overcome many unprecedented challenges in recent years. The bank is confident in working together to deliver much-needed protection to customers while minimising risks without compromising customer experience. Going forward, the bank will stay committed to providing provide first-in-class insurance products and services to the bank’s large and diversified customer base, leveraging a range of face-to-face, remote virtual and digital channels.

Ms Ng has a collective community of over 7,000 followers (across Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) to share her daily life, insightful articles and promote financial literacy. With the credibility built, she has gained buy-in from corporate clients and typically gains five walk-ins per month.

She handles 70 clients and her team of agents handle 337 clients collectively. In 2021, she recruited seven FCs, five of whom joined via social media. She also achieved Court of Table and Million Dollar Agency. She was among the top three senior financial services managers in the first half of 2021 and was also promoted to financial services director.

Together with two other agents, she helped raised S$9,821 ($7,005) for Community Chest through two rounds of charity coffee chats she initiated. She was invited as a keynote speaker in Asia Adviser Network Virtual Summit to share the strategies and insights of closing C-Suite clients and gets regular invitations as a speaker with different agencies. She has spoken to more than seven agencies in 2021.

She was appointed as a Prudential MDRT ambassador and recruitment kick-off keynote speaker to provide mentorship to peers in digital media growth (production and recruitment). Out of seven FCs recruited, five joined through social media. She was also able to allocate more time to coaching whilst maintaining her sales production. Attributing 80% of sales due to digital efforts. All her FCs prospect through social media platforms with relevant digital skills and digital decks for pitching.

Ms Ng was also nominated to join Prudential’s feedback and marketing working committee along with 4 other ALs to give inputs for marketing initiatives. Concurrently, she was part of Pru’s Fin-Fluencer group to share insights in social media platforms.

In 2021, she nearly cleared MMDA (S$1.27m regular premiums, 337 lives, 586 cases). She has attracted over 200 clients through social media and was fastest to rise to financial services director within 4.5 years – expanding team size whilst maintaining COT y-o-y.

Headquarter (HQ), by Heartzmail continues to deliver services with a high-touch client experience consistently, which has been the goal of trusted advisers.

HQ’s solutions help resolve some of the toughest problems that affect financial advisers and their clients. The company’s monthly eNewsletter and personalised printed birthday/review postcards are automated services that are delivered on behalf of the adviser.

It generates 14 messages per annum with little effort from the adviser. The web profile and referral system work together to place the adviser favourably before a first prospect meeting and is as easy as forwarding a link.

HQ’s financial checklist and the eOne-card system ensures that all reviews are done with proper date-time stamped documentation. The prospecting problem is sustainably solved, as trusted client relationships yield qualified referrals. This reduces the high prospecting cost and frees up time for the adviser to focus on the client. The daily use of HQ by the adviser generates activity data points.

The introduction of HQ EDGE analytics in 2021 provides advisers with support by their mentors, coaches and leaders. With zero administrative overhead, HQ EDGE analytics empower leaders with visibility to make data-driven decisions based on facts, rather than assumptions. Strategic incentives can be implemented to drive activities and personal weekly targets, together with incentives that are based upon actual production.

Activity indicators in EDGE analytics that show up in red allow leaders to zero-in quickly to extend support to advisers who may struggle from time to time. Additionally, the sharing of such activity data provides advisers with an elevated awareness of their own progress, allowing them to benchmark one another for more insightful learning and growth.

In 2021, AIA Singapore launched Xplore with Ally and iRecruit. Xplore with Ally is a first-of-its-kind multi-needs financial calculator and is prompted by AIA insurance representatives for potential prospects/customers who wish to have a preliminary understanding of their needs and goals.

Xplore and Ally also acts as a digital platform for always-on lead generation for prospecting of customers. The company was able successfully to generate almost 1,000 leads within two months from the launch and converted customers to approximately 300k annualised new premiums.

AIA has one of the largest tied-distribution channels and also achieved #1 MDRT company in Singapore for the highest number of MDRT registered members, seven times. In order to transform and streamline its tied-distribution recruitment process, the company launched iRecruit.

The company recruits talented and committed insurance representatives and helps them to connect more efficiently, by streamlining the recruitment process on one single platform. iRecruit allows new insurance representatives to access a plethora of resources and content to help them kickstart their career with AIA, and bridges the gap between leader and insurance representative by allowing them to learn more about each other. The tied agency recruitment application at AIA is now 100% via iRecruit.

AIA’s MyAIA digital platform saw a 35% growth in users, with close to 700,000 users and improved login experience with integration to Singpass mobile. The company’s HealthShield pre-authorisation and claims requests are fully assessed using AI with 60% of claims paid within 24 hours.

AIA also launched eBenefits in 2021 that enabled easy access to medical eCards, policy coverage, clinic locator and more for corporate customers. AIA’s super-app iSMART continued to support its insurance representatives in the generation of close to 200,000 leads in 2021.

In 2021, Mr Jong volunteered for MDRT by serving as the Annual Meeting PGA Member Services committee chair, MDRT Foundation Global Gives Day co-chair and MDRT ambassador. As the co-chair of Gives Day, he led a team of 100 volunteers and raised a record-breaking amount of around $500,000 for the MDRT Foundation. He also volunteered his time serving as the coach to three study groups by providing guidance to 16 aspirant MDRT advisers.

His proudest achievement in 2021 is his involvement with Bring It On (BIO), a non-profit organisation he founded in 2019. BIO’s mission is to improving children welfare, especially those from the low-income familes. He understands the importance of education and the vicious cycle of those living in poverty. He has first-hand experience as his sons were legally adopted from extremely poor families. He believes that education is the way to break the poverty cycle.

Two of the projects under BIO is School is Fun and Learning is Fun. School is Funfocuses on providing poor students with school supplies so they can feel good about going back to school and be proud of themselves. One hundred sets of school bags were donated to students from low-income families.

Learning is Fun is a collaborative project with another non-profit, the Breakthrough Youth Centre, to provide free after school tuition to students from low-income family.

Another project that he is proud-of is Kuching Food Aid (KFA). Due to the pandemic, many families were facing food shortage crisis. Since the inception, the team has given 45,000 food aid boxes to qualify families within Sarawak. A food aid box consists of basic food supply that will keep a family of four from hunger for a week.

Mr Yung joined AIA in 1982, became Regional Agent of the Year 1984 and Regional Top New Supervisor of the Year 1985 and has been setting company-wide records since then.

He has dedicated himself to elevating the image of the insurance industry. In 1991, during his tenure as president of LUAHK, together with the presidents of the National Life Underwriter Associations across the region, he co-founded the Asia Pacific Life Insurance Council with the mission of advancing industry standards region-wide. He was elected chairman 1995-1997.

He fostered LUAHK’s affiliation with MDRT to encourage improvements in productivity and professionalism. Together with industry practitioners and the Life Insurance Council, he advocated a self-regulation system and a register of insurance intermediaries which was implemented in 1993. Since then, he has championed the industry’s adoption of international qualifications of LIMRA, CFP and RFC in HK.

Contributions to education and community

In 1992, he initiated HK’s first professional life insurance training course co-organised by CityU and LUAHK and served in governance boards in tertiary education institutes. He is currently chairman, HK Examinations and Assessment Authority and council member, HKUST.

While serving at the Community Chest in 1991-2001, he mobilised industry-wide participation in charitable activities, notably helping to raise over $16m in 1995 and heightening public respect for the profession. In recognition of his contributions to the community, he was conferred the Medal of Honour in 2001 and Silver Bauhinia Star in 2011 and appointed Justice of the Peace in 2007 by the HKSAR government.

Positioning AIA for the future

In 2012, he was elected president of Life Underwriters & Sales Executives Board. Established by AIA agency leaders as an advisory body to AIA Management on various business aspects, LUSEB represents 2,400 district directors and 19,000 financial planners. As current LUSEB president, he continues to enhance the quality and professionalism of agency force to support AIA’s future development.

Ms Chan started her career as a life agent in 1988, became an agency leader in 1995 and was appointed regional director in 2005. She currently leads an agency comprising four senior and regional directors with over 450 professional agency leaders and agents.

Since the outbreak of pandemic in early 2020, she has embraced all the challenges she has faced and has helped her agency managers and agents to continue performing at their best while adapting to the requirements of the new business environment – going online, shifting target markets and exploring new product opportunities.

One of the highlights was the establishment of “Lifenjoys悠活” in 2021, a brand to attract millennials to join as life agents and encourages them to own their career and goals in FTLife.

As a result, she reached new heights of leadership performance in 2021 by achieving agency sales growth of 28%, MDRT representation growth of 67% and recruitment of 200 new agents, all of which culminated in her being crowned Executive/Senior Regional Director of the Year (Champion) – the highest accolade within FTLife to recognise agency management performance.

Despite her achievements, she is not content to rest on her laurels and actively strives for self-improvement, having attained multiple professional qualifications, including a master’s in insurance and financial planning.

She has also actively contributed to the industry and her company. She has served on the GAMAHK board of directors since 2009 and became the president in 2016. She introduced the Charity Basket Competition and several new awards to encourage management excellence in the industry. At FTLife, she is serving in several business advisory committees, and is one of the company’s Master Builders who share leadership insights during in-house events and training courses.

With a heart to give back to society, she founded a volunteer team called “動力愛心 義工隊” in 2007 with the philosophy of ‘Lives Impacting Lives’ to help those in need. The team now has over 100 volunteers and regularly serves society. In 2021, she and the team took part in services to deliver anti-epidemic materials to people in need.

Mr Lau started his career as a life agent at FTLife in 1989 and is currently a senior regional director leading over 60 professional agency leaders and agents.

Despite the pandemic, he achieved his record-high personal production performance by achieving 1.5 times of TOT production in 2021, a 160% increase of his 2020 performance. He attained TOT production in August.

His extraordinary sales performance in 2021 has crowned him Achiever of the Year (Champion) and Case Achiever of the Year (Champion), which are the two highest honours to recognise producers in FTLife. He sold over 200 cases in 2021 and won Case Achiever of the Year (Champion) for four consecutive years.

He also attained “忠誠王”, the highest accolade in FTLife to recognise the best performer with the highest level of loyalty to the company in 2021.

His loyalty and consistent performance has made him FTLife’s first choice of nomination to the Insurance Agent of the Year of the 7th Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Awards 2022.

Ms Cooray began her working career in 2013 at John Keells Holdings (JKH) where she became the youngest person to become a sector financial controller at the age of 29. She was soon promoted to vice president, finance, Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, JKH Leisure sector.

Since June 2021 she has been working as the chief bancassurance officer at Union Assurance (UA). In her new role she has stitched up partnerships with Sampath, Pan Asia and Standard Chartered and established Sri Lanka’s largest bancassurance network with a footprint of 400 branches.

Despite lack of physical access to branches for six months in 2021, she helped in revamping the company’s digital channel and activated it not only as a sales tool but also as a lifestyle app for clients – better suiting customer expectations. She also spearheaded the first-ever innovative public relations campaign along with bank partners for increased customer awareness, unlocking the potential of UA’s bancassurance solutions as the most visible provider on the island.

She is passionate about inspiring individuals to reach their full potential with focus on youth empowerment and gender equality. Under her leadership and stewardship, the new bancassurance partnerships produced 67 MDRT members including 10 COT members and 2 TOT members. Additionally, the new branches were able to create employment opportunities for 275 employees.

In recognition of her leadership skills and passion for women’s empowerment she was presented the JKH chairman’s award for DE&I. She is the recipient of the Jane M Klausman women in business award and has also been bestowed the Vanithabimana national award for financial management, which is a platform that recognises female achievers breaking new ground and contributing to the local economy.

Mr Artsaree is a service-minded unit manager for AIA Thailand who always offers his heartfelt services and prompt claim management to acquire new clients. He currently has four insurance agents and five administrative staff in his Bepro 27 team.

In 2021, he and his team members joined hands to deliver an impressive performance of 20 group insurance policies with annualised new premium of THB48.1m ($1.33m) and nearly 18,000 members under protection. He currently has 46 corporate clients with nearly 33,000 members covered by AIA group insurance policies.

In that year, he also managed to achieve MDRT Top of the Table status, his second consecutive year, as well as several internal awards, while leading one of his team members to achieve MDRT status.

Despite the success he has had, he is always looking to set higher performance benchmarks. For example, he aims to produce ANP of THB100m in 2022 which is double the size of his 2021 production, and successfully ended the first quarter of 2022 with ANP of over THB30m.

On top of his consistent excellent performance, he makes sure to maintain the very highest levels of service and dedication to corporate solutions and his clients.

He created a LINE Group for members of each company to directly submit claims or ask about any concerns at their convenience. This communication channel allows him to handle claims effectively and promptly and provides HR clearer pictures of claims for strategising to reduce claims ratio and absenteeism successfully.

He analyses client companies’ claim reports on a quarterly basis and if the report demonstrated a high claims ratio, he would investigate the sicknesses and concerns of the majority and the root causes, then propose health and wellbeing activities that are specially designed to resolve their concerns and reduce claim ratios to the HR of the company.

He encourages CS agents to propose life-in-group or health riders to customers to ensure that the insurance policies members currently hold are adequate to meet the potential risk and are in accordance with thier current medical expenses. He also makes sure to give back to society by donating money, medical equipment and necessities to hospitals, temples, underprivilege children and elderly people across Thailand.

Ms Wong understands that mental health is an important aspect that is often overlooked and takes a keen interest to ensure it is part of the company’s focus. AIA Singapore is the first insurer to introduce mental wellbeing coverage and continued to expand on these initiatives.

She always has the interest of her customers at heart. At the core of her mandate are three principles underpinning her vision and all her decisions are based on them:
 

• The future of insurance (and finance) is about making it simpler and more enjoyable to plan for the future
• The future of health prioritises holistic wellness where mental wellbeing is important
• The future of work is about being confident in making personal work-life choices

She has made it her mission to mobilise a new people-first mandate and her leadership has delivered impressive results.

She expanded AIA’s health and life insurance business to target high-net worth individuals, with AIA’s ‘Wealthbeing by AIA’ proposition.

She catalysed investment in technology, digital and analytics capabilities to stay ahead of the digital curve by innovating and empowering insurance representatives with robust digital tools that also deliver personalised advice, service and care experiences.

She made tangible commitments to environmental protection for a more sustainable future for all – In 2021, AIA Singapore pledged S$5m to the National Parks Board’s registered charity, Garden City Fund, to plant trees in Singapore’s parks and nature reserves over the next 5 years.

Stepped up commitment in giving back to the community through the launch of AIA Better Lives Fund to raise funds for underprivileged children and their family, toward creating greater access and opportunities for education, growth and development.

She accelerated technological, digital and analytical efforts to support insurance representatives and as a result of her efforts.

The pandemic challenged the insurer’s resilience, however, it also reinforced its commitment to support its customers, advisers and the community at large. It was aided in this by its strong digital foundation and hence not only maintained its service standards across the country but posted excellent performance during 2021 despite the pandemic.

The credit for this achievement goes to the insurer’s digitally equipped and professional agency force, which was the main driver of its success. The company grew its agency force by 11.5% during 2021.

This helped the company to lead the market in terms of first-year premiums with 39% year-on-year growth. The over 60,000 agency-force contributed over 70% of the total premium and 58% of the first-year premiums. This strong success reaffirmed Manulife’s unwavering commitment to invest in its advisers’ careers and development. It also ranked the first in Vietnam in MDRT 2021 rankings.

Manulife launched MaxX D mobile application to transform advisers’ ways of working. The app is considered a virtual personal assistant for agents and offers them their business data together with features such as target setting, activities planning and tracking, sales and recruitment funnels, hierarchy and performance analytics and all in a user-friendly interface.

MaxX D is complemented by digital servicing tools such as ePayment, eClaims, Electronic Point of Sale, eContract, providing both customers and advisers with much needed convenience, speed, safety and continuity.

The launch of its Shop eCommerce platform in 2021 further strengthened its omnichannel approach and amplified its online success story through lead generation.

The insurer’s Unassigned Customer Management programme, which utilises data analytics and AI application to connect potential and unassigned customers with advisers, helps maximise the opportunity for up-sell and cross-sell and ultimately generated more than $1m in APE for 2021. In addition, Manulife Vietnam’s free monthly livestream series in 2021 attracted 1.5m viewers and the performance greatly supported agents with sale activities and leads.