Journey to my first professional qualification - Career in Insurance

Journey to my first professional qualification

Dr. Junaedy Ganie

I am very colourful in term of the number of professional qualifications under my belt. However, I have an interesting story to share on how I gained my first qualification.

In general insurance, I am a Fellow of the Australian & New Zealand Institute of Insurance & Finance, a Certified Insurance Professional from the same Institute, a Fellow of the Indonesian Insurance Institute (AAMAI) on honoris cause basis. 

In the life insurance and financial sector, I am a Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant.

Being an Arbitrator, I could not resist pursuing professional qualifications in arbitration to match and support my vast practical experiences. Toward end of 2016, I earned my Fellow BANI Chartered Arbitrator recognition and then passed the exam from London based Chartered Institute of Arbitrators to earn my Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators qualification.

However, how did I earn my first professional qualification? It was with the New Zealand Institute of Insurance (NZII), well before it merged with the Australian Institute of Insurance to become what it is today, The Australian & New Zealand Institute of Insurance & Finance.

I took the distance learning and tutorial from NZII. The Institute provided once a year examination held in Jakarta under the supervision of the local examination centre organized in cooperation with the executives of Asuransi Inda Tamporok, a New Zealand Insurance Joint Venture in Indonesia. I recall that Arizal was the first AIINZ designation holder followed by Ketut Swastika, both were respectively the General Manager and marine manager there, Arizal later became the Managing Director of the company.   They took a few expatriates working in the insurance business in Indonesia with ACII qualification the like of Bernard Sheriff, Edward Nugent and a few Indonesians who were either earlier holders of ACII designation or still taking the courses in UK to supervise the examinations. All exams was on essay basis and result of completed papers/home works counted 30% toward the pass mark.

I sat for the exam for first time in 1987 when I was working for IBS. I took 3 subjects and passed all subjects. In the following year, I took 4 subjects and likewise I passed all. In third year, in 1989, with 5 out of 12 subject left to obtain my AIINZ professional qualification, I took all 5 and determined to complete all the subjects and set a record to earn the qualification in 3 years.  

The first examination days went well and I thought I performed well. It turned out that the night before the last day was the night of the arrival of our second child and first baby boy which was rather prematurely at Pondok Indah hospital. Nevertheless, I was all set for the exam and just stayed on at the hospital, with a few hours before the exam, admiring and looking after our baby boy. At about 1.00 pm, an hour prior the exam to take place, I arrived at Tugu Pratama’s hall fully prepared for the test only to find that the room was empty. Deserted. Nobody was there. It was not the age of mobile phone so I rushed to ask of what happened and learnt that the exam was held in the morning! I was very disappointed and could not accept it even though it was nobody’s mistake but mine. I immediately went to the office of Inda Tamporok and met with Kevin Horrack, a New Zealander who worked there and asked him to make call to New Zealand to ask for exemption to sit for the exam under his supervision. Unfortunately, the response was negative and he told me, “I know who you are but regrettably they told me they would not make precedence and you would have to take another one next year”. I, being a hard headed and of a persistent personality, insisted to him to give me the exam paper and be allowed to sit for the exam and let the people in Wellington to decide whether or not my paper would be accepted. He concurred with me.

Unfortunately, when the assessment was returned some weeks or a few months later, I passed all except the one I took in the last day. I had got 11 out of 12 subjects completed. It would be understandable if I did not perform well given the situation immediately prior to the exam. I would have to understand if the Institute did not want to allow me to set a precedence of taking it beyond the set time table. Somehow, I could not accept it and decided not take another exam the following year and the following year and the following year for 3 years in a row. Then, I had to face reality when, like or not, under the new insurance regulation following the enactment of Law No.  2 Year 1992, the government started to made insurance professional qualification to be mandatory requirement to hold certain technical positions. I came to point that I had no choice but to take the exam and with only one subject to pass, NZII exam was the fastest route to meet the local requirement.  I managed to make peace with myself and sat for the exam and passed and finally earned my Associate of the Insurance Institute of New Zealand (AIINZ) designation. I can recall that Ketut Swastika called me to congratulate me for completing the study and said, “It is great that we now have you among our members”.  It turned out that during the period of my disappearance, NZII still had not produced any new graduate after Arizal and Ketut and I happened to be its third graduate in Indonesia. 

Given my standing in the local market and the benefits it gave me, I felt that it was as good as it was to me as it was to NZII to have me as one of its members to attract other Indonesians to study from NZII. The uncertainty whether the government of Indonesia would recognise the overseas qualification to be in compliance with the legal requirement was clear with NZII qualification was recognised and since then more and more students took NZII exams in Indonesia. This qualification was later converted into Senior Associate of Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance designation following the merger of New Zealand Insurance Institute with the Australian Insurance Institute. In total, it took me 7 years to complete including the 3-year absence without leave notice while I could have taken only 3 plus 1 year should I be more thoughtful and be wiser. A lesson learnt.

If we compare with the current practice following the implementation of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), it was indeed a different world.

Jakarta, 5 February 2017

Dr. Junaedy Ganie