When Danny Lee started his agency three years ago, he had a specific value proposition in mind: provide a suite of sophisticated investment options unmatched by peers or competitors.
"Most advisors are insurance-focused, so they know how to do risk protection, critical illness coverage and so on," Lee said. "When it comes to investments, they just take a couple of funds and they throw money in there and say, ‘OK, I'm going to do investments for you.’"
Sensing an opportunity to specialize, Lee, a former polytechnic economics teacher and current investment trainer, designed his agency as a premier destination for investors. While traditional insurance production remains the foundation for Lee’s agency — he estimates the business mix is 70% insurance and 30% investments — he sees enhanced investment offerings as a distinguishing, value-adding service that can help the agency deepen relationships with clients.
“As a leader you have to be multifaceted, and of course, I see the importance of risk protection too. It’s just that I've not used that as my first option to approach clients with,” he said. “For a general client, it's always insurance first, then I stack on investments and their wealth transfer at the end.”
To realize the goal of providing sophisticated investment options, Lee has been systematically building investment acumen within his 22-person team. Some of those team members came to his agency specifically because he is so investment-oriented. Lee himself is currently pursuing his own Certified Investment Management Analyst certification through an Australian provider — one of only three in the world that offer the accreditation, alongside The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Yale University.
His advisors offer other options beyond the capabilities of rivals. They build detailed profiles for clients filled in by granular investment customization, and provide sound reasoning behind each recommendation. In short, they provide portfolio construction services.
What is portfolio construction? Let’s say there’s a client who has one million dollars to invest. Portfolio construction is the process of allocating that money into different market opportunities. Individual strategies are calculated using the client’s financial goals, time horizon and appetite for risk. Further adjustments are made based on external market conditions and how much money should be directed to different parts of the world. Finally, Lee’s advisors define and clarify the investor’s style to determine how they’ll likely act in the market.
“There's a science of portfolio construction,” Lee said. “It is slowly coming to Singapore. My advisors are slowly learning and picking up the scientific skills of doing so while still maintaining the art of understanding your clients and addressing their needs."
Lee’s teammates are expected to actively manage investment funds for clients. Obviously, this can become very complicated, very fast. Fortunately, Lee has an answer. To make the process more manageable, he maintains what he calls a "conviction fund list," which is updated every few months.
“I have an analytic system that will filter all the funds in our universe to find those in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere that stand out through our screening process.”
Lee is the final decision maker on what gets listed or delisted from the conviction fund, but nothing is changed without first consulting the rest of his team.
"Each fund that I put there, I go through a whole process with my whole team so they can see and learn it at the same time," he said. "So when they talk to the clients, they have stories to sell. Because at the end of the day, stories sell."
Tying investment advice back to powerful stories helps highlight its similarity to insurance advising. Ultimately, both require the advisor to communicate complex concepts in relatable terms. But their technical foundation needs to be solid before they can do that. And with investments, the stakes are higher, so the advisor needs to engage that much better to remain a trusted confidante for clients.
"When you give the money to the insurer, the insurer invests for you, and you get some cash value,” Lee said. “We are comparing that with investments, which have no guarantee at all.”
Lee's team meets regularly to discuss not only new products, market fluctuations and regulatory changes, but also individual cases advisors are working on. The sessions provide opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and collaboration. When two teammates ended up separately working with one-half of a married couple, they collaborated on joint planning sessions.
Not all his advisors focus on investments to the same degree, but all stand to gain from this training, Lee reasons. Some of his advisors cater primarily to wealthy, older clients who are quite active in the market and want a regular consulting partner. For advisors whose client base skews younger, investment training provides a growth path as those relationships mature. The advisor who primarily sells insurance to a 30-year-old client today may be managing that same client's retirement portfolio in 20 years.
Advisors also benefit from diversifying their offerings into the investment world by making their path toward MDRT easier. The investment component provides ongoing advisory fees that complement traditional insurance commissions. Under MDRT income calculations, the wrap fees from investment management count toward production goals.
The moves Lee has made have allowed him to qualify for the 2025 MDRT Culture of Excellence Diamond Award in just three years of operation. And while he doesn’t credit investments as the sole factor behind his achievement, he said it is among the difference makers.
“We stabilized, we tightened the processes, and we created a safe environment but still made sure that we increased our productivity through activities, and, of course, having more investments,” he said. “Lastly, we had a few more productive advisors join us.”
Count them as yet another of Lee’s solid investments.
Contact: Danny Lee, dannylee@synergy.com.sg
