How I got my promotion and started to become an Insurance Expert - Career in Insurance

Dr. Junaedy Ganie

Introduction

This morning on February 28, 2017, Leanne Duong, Regional Manager of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance from Melbourne asked if I was interested to talk about my insurance career in a forum planned to be held in the very near future.

The discussion made me realized that my career in the insurance field had reached 39 years on Saturday, February 25, 2017. Coincidently, it was the day I received the good news that I belong to the 35 people who passed the selection process of the selection of Phase II of FSA Board of Commissioners for the 2017-2022period.

Awareness of the anniversary of my insurance career that passed by without knowing it and a couple of previous events have prompted me to write an article about the topic that I think will be interesting and inspiring be known to the public. Coincidentally a few weeks earlier I had a chat about the past with one of the prominent insurance figures in Indonesia, Mr. Frans Lamury, ahead BANI arbitration hearing at the Arbitration Center which was followed by his invitation to the former AIU Reunion on February 4, 2017. At the reunion selected to talk about my AIU experiences a topic to share.

This is the English version of the article I wrote and published earlier in Indonesian Language.

HOW I GOT MY PROMOTION AND STARTED TO BECOME AN INSURANCE EXPERT

After a period of 1year as an insurance agent at AIA (B), from February 25, 1978 to February 24, 1979, I changed profession to be a salaried employee at the same company. Through a rather complicated and exciting process, I was accepted as Sales Representative of Employee Benefits under Mrs. Henny Budiman, the manager at the Department named Group Department. I underwent a process of self-maturation in term of being independence, acquisition of new insurance skills, sales of different products and conducted mentoring for two fellow Sales Representatives who joined later, namely Charlie Mochtan (deceased) and Afiat Djajanegara and another colleague who did not stay for long. 

Being impatience and highly ambitious made me unsatisfied with my career progress. It encouraged me, at the age of 24 years, to talk heart to heart with Mrs. Budiman asking whether I had acquired sufficient skills to become an Assistant Manager or Sales Supervisor. Had I not met the requirements, I would still want to know what more I should prepare. It turned out I had to face the reality that I was considered unqualified to get the promotion I wanted.

While continuing to improve sales performance, I constantly found ways to get my career promotion. One year later, after the Group Department relocated to join AIU office, Robert Teguh (deceased), whom I respected highly for his indepth insurance knowledge promoted as Vice President Director, the opportunity arose.  Bob, for short, was a Production Manager at AIU, a sister company of AIA. Bob also acted as Engineering Underwriting Manager primarily for Boiler & Machinery and Contractors All Risks / Contract Work. Holding the courage that might be considered overly ambitious, I targeted the position Bob left. 25 years of age, equipped with formal education of nothing more than having completed freshman level at the Faculty of Economics, University of Sriwijaya in Palembang, 3-year work experience in my belt, including 1 year as an insurance agent and only knew Personal Accident and Employee Benefits Insurance. What shall I do?

AIU Indonesia back then was headed by Manuel Juarez, also known as Manny, a tall and big red Indian American. I concluded that I had to shoot to the top and went straight to Manny to offer myself to replace Bob! When the opportunity arose, Manny was of course caught in big surprise by my desire and even said: "How can I give the job to you. You are just familiar with personal accident and employee benefits insurance only and may be a little motor vehicle insurance and fire insurance for dwelling houses. You know, as Production Manager, Bob was responsible for sales of all types of insurances including new products and the ones not widely known such as Professional Indemnity, Political Risks and Directors & Officers Liability Insurance". His reaction was anticipated and understandable. The answer did not break my determination to state the case as to why I deserved that responsibility and that Manny would never regret building on me. In short, the conversation in Manny’s office lasted until about 4 hours and yet I had not able to convince him. However, I still believed I would get the job. Exactly a week later, Manny called me into his office and said that he was still not sure that I was qualify for the job, Moreover, he said that holding concurrent position as an Engineering Manager would make it tricky bearing in mind Bob was an engineer graduated in Australia while I might have never seen foundation works of a building under construction  and would not know what a boiler would look like.

At that point, I told Manny that I really wanted the job because it would give me the best access to all kinds of knowledge and expertise in general insurance. I finally offered that I would do the same job as a Production Manager while my title would simply be as an Assistant Manager. To further convince him that I was a fast learner so that I would be able to pursue the necessary knowledge base in a short span of time, I told Manny: “Give the job to me and as an undertaking I will submit a letter of resignation from the Employee Benefits Department and in return please give me from AIU a new Employment Letter with a 3-month probation period”. I further said "You will not lose face if I do not pass the probation because you will only lose a failure” What happened? I got the job, reported directly to Robert Teguh, Vice President Director of the company. What a great opportunity to learn directly from the master. Alhamdulillah.

Thereafter, during the first 3 months, almost every night I went home at after  21:00. At one ocassion, Herman Tuwaidan (deceased), one of the respected leaders of the Indonesian insurance industry at the time and former General Manager of AIU, before being replaced by Manny, surprised to find I was still reading with thick client files spreading on my table at 11.00 at night under the dim lights, "Do you have cat's eyes"?, he asked. From this process, I gained in depth understanding of most of the profiles and  the type of coverage and the dynamics of AIU’s corporate clients kept in long row of dozen of filing cabinets in the office at 10th floor of the unique inverted pyramid shape like building known as Wisma Hayam Wuruk. The rest, beyond carrying out my routine tasks, from morning till evening I "interrupted" all department managers especially Herman Effendi (Fire Manager), Bambang Ambardy (Casualty & Marine Manager) assisted by Pius Tapoona and Yvonne Lontoh, Denny Awuy (Automobile Manager) and occasionally with late I.B. Siregar, Claim Manager assisted by Nannie Dwimarksono and Agus Riyanto. I learned a lot from them and completed the 3-month probation.

On Boiler & Machinery insurance, I reported to James Hooper, Regional Manager of AIU located in Manila before relocated to Melbourne. For Contractors All Risks/Contract Works, I reported to D. C. Chan, Regional Manager, based in Hong Kong. D. C. later replaced by Dorian Grey when D. C. received a promotion as a Contract Works Manager at AIG headquarters in New York. I learned and gained a great deal, especially from James Hooper and Dorian Grey. Both invested a lot of their valuable time educating me directly on one to one basis. The business model adopted by AIU of having only one line underwriting manager for each type of product required me not only to serve existing clients and direct accounts and agents, I had to deal with and served inquiries from the demanding and some international insurance brokers. In fact, when one day I decided to leave AIU to become Underwriting Manager for Property and Special Risks at Cigna Indonesia when it was called Afia Indonesia, James Hooper made a special visit from Melbourne to Jakarta. He said. “Your training had not been completed and let us use the next few days to finish it so that I would be proud of you out there as my protege”. Thank you James, Dorian. By the way, Regional Manager of Cigna who approached me from Singapore to offer me a new job knew me from Manny. Cigna knew me from Manny after he had moved to an insurance broker in Singapore, a solid evidence that Manny was proud of my accomplishments in AIU.

Episodes with Manny Juarez is still unfinished. I will write on another occasion about how I received a scholarship from the AIU to continue my studies at the Faculty of Economics.

Jakarta, 28 February 2017

Dr. Junaedy Ganie