Articles

My Hero

My Hero

SP case. My Hero

Financial Controller. I did total financial planning for him (including medical coverage, critical illness, income protection, investment and retirement planning, estate planning, and will writing).

One day, his vision blurred and he got a tumor in the brain. Within 2 years, there have been 7 brain surgeries, and the total medical bill has reached Rm400k. Fortunately, it is covered by the insurance company for critical illness claims. After a few months, I received a call from my wife that he had passed away due to a bacterial infection. I had no idea about the family's financial situation. Can you help?

Me: No worries; we will work on it after his funeral.

I paid my last respects to my friend. You can go peacefully. I will make sure your wife and son are well taken care of financially. Within 3 months, we settled all the property transfers, insurance claims, and bank transactions. The son can continue his tertiary education in Australia. Yet the widow had to go through six months of depression. We overcame this together. Now she leads a peaceful life and is financially free.

The Great Father

The Great Father

Son wants to further study in Taiwan, so his father (a hawker) refinanced the house for his son’s school fee. After a few years, his son came back and worked at Inventec as an engineer. Suddenly he got a digestive problem and has been doing the treatment at Lam Wah Ee Hospital, and he needs to pack his own lunch to work every day by following the diet to cure his sickness. A year later, he passed away.

Father has to pay the medical bill of RM60,000 in installments because the bill is too big. Meanwhile, the father also needs to pay the refinance house installments that he made before.

We love our parents, and we hope this story will awaken all of us to the importance of risk management and the need to do early financial planning.

Mooncake Festival: Delivered Son’s Love & Responsibility

We start our mornings off right

An engineer based in China (salary in USD) diagnosed nose cancer. I help him with his critical illness claim (Great Eastern’s customer, but not under my care).

Two years later, he passed away. The family doesn’t know their son still has a $75k life policy. Help with the claim and deliver two checks: Father (age 81) and Mother (age 79). Since it is the mooncake festival, I bought some mooncake and delivered the claim check.

Father: Borrowing money from relatives to treat at Singapore. Settle all borrowing after his death, and nothing is left. We continue rubber-tapping.

Me: Uncle, even though your son has to go, his love and responsibility remain. With these two checks, you both can leave a decent life in this village, accompanied by your son’s love and responsibility.

K–‘s story: Holiday Forever

Holiday Forever

Friday morning, we are having an agency meeting. Half way from the meeting, agent K is not feeling well, and her husband J (also my agent) sent her to see the doctor. That evening, I received a call from J, saying he was at GMC Hospital with K. He received a call from his family doctor, who stated that K’s blood test report showed leukemia and that he still needed further confirmation. The result will be out in 2 hours.

Me: Whatever the result will be, we will accept it and face it together.

The result is acute leukemia, and we need treatment by next Monday. Me and J went to get a second opinion on Saturday, and J decided to start treatments at GMC. J has to prepare RM240k for the full treatment cost. Since J & K are well insured, they decided to go for it. She recovers well, and they move into a new house. We celebrated the housewarming and her recovery.

Two years later, she had stroke symptoms and was admitted again to the hospital. She was diagnosed with reoccurring leukemia again. She went into a coma on the third day. We all take turns to donate platelets for the next 28 days until her last breath. Total bill is around Rm60k. We sent her off for holidays forever.

She is one of my very best business partners. She has a very caring and loving personality, a good learning attitude, is quite type, and always has a has a smiling face. We used to travel together to many countries on company trips, such as Hokkaido, Egypt, Spain, and Turkey.

Luckily, she had the best and most colorful years of her insurance career before her long holidays.

She will always be in our hearts and we will love her forever.

J—’s story: Because I trust you

J— signed up for his first policy with me in 1996. A pharmacist by profession, he and his wife raised four children together, who I've seen grow up over the years. From time to time, I help him to plan and execute his financial planning, including medical and life coverage for his family, kids' education fund, and annual holiday trips. Since he is the breadwinner of the family, he has good income protection & retirement planning too.

One day, J— sought my financial advice on his plan to buy a double-story semi-detached house. He was worried about whether he had enough saved for his two youngest children to pursue their tertiary education overseas.

After reviewing his financial planning with him:

Me: You go ahead and buy the property that you love. You deserve it!

J—: I never knew that for so many years you were helping out with financial planning for me and my family.

Me: Remember every time I went through the planning with you, and you agreed to take up. Do you really understand what I explained to you before?

J—: I understand at that point but I tend to forget after sometime. But the key point is I TRUST what you did for me and my family.

It was only 20 years later that J— realized the full picture of the financial planning I did for him. His eldest daughter is now a doctor and his second daughter is a pharmacist, while his third and fourth children are now at university paid for by the education fund planned 18 years ago. As he is about to enter retirement, J— has peace of mind as he and his family are well-covered medically, and he has put aside ample savings in his retirement fund to enjoy life to the fullest. And so they shall live happily ever after...

Y—’s story: Waiting for dinner

A teacher by profession, Y's story is testament to human resilience and a lesson about planning ahead.

One evening in 2001, Y—'s husband didn't come home for dinner as he usually did. When her calls went unanswered and her waiting proved in vain, she began to grow worried. Rallying her family and neighbours, they started a search around the small town for her husband — and finally they found him, in his car, by the road side in a nearby taman. He had passed away due to a sudden heart attack while driving home.

Y— was pregnant at the time, and she struggled to accept the news. She couldn't imagine raising her newborn baby without his dad. During her darkest days, she even contemplated giving up her life to be with her husband. But with encouragement from her family and friends, she got through the tragedy and gave birth to a baby boy.

Thankfully, even though her husband is now in Heaven, his love and care for his family remained. From his insurance planning, Y— and her son were provided for through the proceeds he left behind.

Y— was able to continue her teaching career, while the insurance proceeds funded the purchase of their home and their son's education. And they both lived happily ever after.