Perks and pitfalls of following in insurance-agent parents' footsteps

With parents serving as mentors, there is pressure on children to prove themselves

- Sharon Salim Business Correspondent

When Ms Wivina Siah was 18, her father, an insurance agent, asked her to help with some administrative work for his clients.

“I remember being really annoyed and thought to myself, I will never go into this job.”

Her view changed dramatically a few years later during the Covid-19 pandemic. When her mother, a property agent, saw her income dry up as house viewings were not possible, her father’s passive income kept the family afloat.

“I saw another beauty of this job: security,” said the 27-year-old, who is now a senior financial consultant at Prudential.

For Mr Salim M. Amin, 63, who used to visit his father’s workplace at an insurance firm in his younger days, it was the warm energy and friendships he made there that inspired him to join the same industry.

“I began to understand how financial planning worked and how doing it right would help individuals and families meet their financial needs,” he said.

Mr Amin went on to set up his own independent life-insurance broker called Avallis Financial in 1997. When his daughter joined the business in 2016, he said his clients’ children naturally gravitated towards her, which helped expand her pool of potential clients.

“Many have also become family friends, meaning my daughter knows their children,” he said.

In Singapore, close to 9,500 people are employed in the life-insurance industry as at June 30. There is, however, no data on how many of them are secondor third-generation agents. Still, industry observers say there continues to be a steady number of new entrants following in their parents’ footsteps.