Philamlife group introduces one-stop shop financial advisors

The concept that drove the Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philamlife) into forming the Philam Financial Advisory Services Inc. (Philam Financials) was that of a one-stop shop or rather a multi-licensed, multi-product barring, and multi-trained financial advisor.

"All in a nutshell" was the term used before to describe a sales man who sold anything from insurance policies, cars, properties, jewelry, watches, and what-have-you.

Then there was the one-stop shop concept where one could buy almost anything generally needed at home, school or office.

Philam Financials is a combination of both but focused on the marketing of various financial products sold by various subsidiaries of Philamlife. These include life and non-life insurance products, pre-need plans, healthcare plans, savings and mortgage, property development, mututal fund investments, credit cards, information technology, and even call center services.

But Philam Financials president and chief executive officer Ferdinand Berba makes a distinction from the old concept of "all in a nutshell."

"Our financial advisors (FAs) are trained to ask what the clients wants, what the client needs, not what we are selling," Berba stressed.

To be able to sell Philam financial products, training is extensive and intensive. And FAs are required to acquire licenses or certificates of completion to sell some of these products.

For example, an FA must study in an institute and take the examinations conducted by the Insurance Commission (IC) before they are allowed to sell insurance policies. The FA must undergo training and receive a certificate of completion prior to selling pre-need plans.

To be able to market mutual funds, the FA must undertake a series of seminars to understand all the types of mutual funds managed by Philam Asset Management Inc. (Pami).

"The market is changing. Customers want to talk to just one person. In all the financial services companies in the industry today, there are different people talking to you for every service or product. The market is now asking for one person "who can understand what I want‚," Berba explained.

Under intensive training is an initial batch of 15 future FAs expected to be unleashed by the start of the second quarter. By the end of the year, this should reach a total of 100, and to a total of 500 by the end of 2009.

"The target is not numbers but to maintain a high productivity and quality level," the chief executive insisted. – TPT