INSURANCE AWARD WINNER
JOHNNY CHAN KA-HING entered the SCMP/IFPHK 2006 Financial Planner Awards because he thought the competition would raise public awareness about financial planning and the industry and also help build his clients' trust and confidence in his abilities as a financial planner.
On learning that he was a finalist in the insurance sector, he sent an e-mail to all of his 400-plus clients to let them know about his success. Their feedback was encouraging.
'They said that the competition proved that I had achieved a certain standard in my profession and that I should keep going. Many of them said that they had watched me growing up over the past 12 years,' Mr Chan said.
As the winner of the Best of the Industry trophy in the insurance sector, he has now proved to his clients that he has the ability to serve them well. He has been doing so since he joined the Prudential Assurance Company following graduation from the University of Hong Kong with a degree in economics in 1994. At that time, many of his clients were fresh graduates and have since married, had children and gained more financial responsibilities.
'The biggest satisfaction over the past 12 years has been working with my clients and being with them as they enter different life cycles. I am helping them accumulate enough money for their children's university fees or for their retirement. It is the greatest satisfaction because I am able to help them,' said Mr Chan, now a senior business manager with Prudential.
He learned a lot of economic theory at university, including budgets and international finance. But no professor helped him learn about personal financial planning. Whereas graduates now might have a grasp of basic personal finances, at the time Mr Chan knew nothing about it and neither did most of his classmates.