“Losing your loved ones is tough, but having a financial planner in your life does help”
I am Monica, a widow aged 52 years old. I came from a poor family and didn’t know anything about finance or money management when I was growing up. I have been working hard with my late husband Andy, in the trading business for the past 20 years and we managed to grow our assets along the way.
Initially we thought that buying a simple life insurance is all there is to financial planning. That was until I was introduced to Stanley back in 2013.
We were skeptical and delayed our meeting with him as we thought he is another salesman coming over to sell financial products. I am a person who does not believe in investment and financial planning. Instead I believed that holding cash is the right thing to do.
Stanley spent many hours meeting us and patiently listening to our financial concerns. He is then able to understand and identify our life and financial goals. Stanley shows the financial pitfalls that we are facing and help us to visualize our cash flow and net worth at that time, while being able to identify our financial gap and estate planning concerns on multiple different scenarios.
After his careful review, he restructured our existing insurance portfolio and managed to increase my late husband’s insurance coverage substantially from what we have based on our limited cash flow. His integrity and process-oriented independent review, and ability to access all types of financial products in the market really impressed us.
Stanley also advised us to set up a complete testamentary trust in our will for resource preservation. Using resource liquidation strategy, we are able to avoid estate shrinkage and potential resource squandering by anybody who is not good at financial management. I am fortunate to follow the advice from Stanley which makes the estate execution process very efficient.
My husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2017 and passed away a year later. Stanley did a good job with timely and efficient claims process. I was able to sail through the difficult period smoothly. He even visited my late husband almost every week in the hospital and accompany us until his last breath. Some of the big insurance policies that we bought a few months before the diagnosis date, Stanley is able to help us claim the insurance payout within a short period of time.
Our family benefited a lot from the insurance payouts. We managed to pay off our mortgages and ensure that our children’s tertiary education is fully funded. Our life and dignity is improved by using the resource optimisation strategy recommended by Stanley on a conservative money management. I am holding a well-diversified investment portfolio and received timely fixed payment to cover our living expenses. We are also being updated regularly on the market’s movement.
I am glad that Stanley is also able to provide my children with solid financial knowledge. Now all my children have graduated and they are back at my company to help me run the business. Stanley also provided my children with tips on business resource optimisation strategy to weather the pandemic and it has helped us tremendously.
I am comfortable knowing that we have a financial peace of mind under Stanley’s good hands. We are very much on track to achieve our family’s financial goals!
About the Author
Stanley Hon is Practice Group Director at FA Advisory Sdn Bhd. He is a Licensed Financial Adviser, MDRT & Speaker, Will & Trust Specialist.