SMU Professor of Finance (Education) Benedict Koh said the tension between marketing insurance products and acting in clients’ best interests is not new. He pointed to a speech made by then Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in 2010 urging insurers to confront Singapore’s under-insurance problem. Part of the problem, Prof Goh argued, lay in the industry’s preference for pushing whole life plans, whose premiums could run three to five times that of a term insurance plan for the same coverage, pricing adequate protection out of reach for young families. SMU alumnus Ang Wei En reached the “Million Dollar Round Table” (MDRT) in 2022 when he was still an undergraduate and joined AIA as a financial adviser after completing national service two years earlier. Wei En told himself that at the end of year two he had to get his MDRT, so he could prove to himself that he’s on the right track and can do this full-time in the future. He mentioned that he turned to his social network, reaching out to nearly 100 people through Instagram and Zoom. His experience reflects a border shift in how advisers now find business.
