First Bad Experience As Licensed Financial Adviser

In Aug 2008, a client's father stricken with multiple myeloma, one type of cancer of the white blood cells . With this incident , he realised a bigger sum insured on critical illnesses insurance of 1 mil coverage  was very important for himself as added protection since the family member carry the cancer genes which might be inheritable, and ask a proposal from me.

At that moment , i have just gotten the Financial Adviser License from Bank Negara Malaysia, and officially can have multiple choices of insurers not only confine to HLA policies whereby i have been represented as a tied agent before that . He has requested me to propose the needed policy , and expected  that i need to explain the types of policy differences from different insurers for him to choose  from.

With such request, i have carefully went through all type of policies illustration from different insurers, printed out the best option from each insurer , categorized them to traditional and investment link policies , participating and non-participating , life and term policies type , and  present to both client and wife.

After presented the proposals in few visits with the differences , pros and cons , and my recommendation of the selected  one type which was suite his need and budget . As usual, both client and wife said will confirm to me again.

Upon follow up  , the client said already insured  the million policy with another agent , the plan that he chosen was the same plan that i recommended .My heart sunk and patiently ask the reason , he commented that i am already a financial adviser definitely has earn very good income now , and thus would like to give other agent the opportunity for business, he hope I still will continue the good service to his family even though this business is not placed to me. While I can’t said much but accepted the truth that my effort being taken for granted.

I am just a normal self employed and working for my best to serve my clients in financial services sector, I too need to survive by working out the needs for clients , exchanged my time and expertise for the income needed for life . Transition to  a licensed financial adviser doesn’t mean the income will come without working on it , in contrast , a licensed financial adviser need to spend much more time to source the better policy among many insurers , much more stringent compliance needed by goverment regulatory body , need more times for market development and all kinds of training , all this added requirement which taken up much more time doesn’t generate an extra a cent of income automatically.

 In“ The Four Principles of Spirituality “ from India ,  the first principle states :” Whomsoever you encounter is the right one” This means that no one comes into our life by chance. Everyone who is around us, anyone with whom we interact, represents something, whether to teach us something or to help us improve a current situation.

Yes, with the unpleasant experience, I had learnt & surely I will improve .