Being an insurance agent can sometimes be a thankless job – family and friends avoiding you like plague upon hearing you are in this line or ringing you up for advice at the first hint of trouble.

But 65-year-old industry veteran Ronald Seet views his vocation through a different lens.

“I never saw this as a business, I saw this more like a ministry, to love and help people,” said the financial services director and wealth manager at Prudential Singapore.

Seet, who began selling insurance when he was just 27, also runs an insurance agency with his wife, June.

“Selling insurance has given me a more holistic approach to people – loving them, caring for them in a more tangible way. Like putting food on their table and children through school.

“Money comes in when none or little exists, so we actually provide in a very tangible way. Some people go in with all the bills but we go in with cheques to give to the families of the deceased. That’s what we do.”

His career took an unusual turn at 40 – that’s when he decided to give the 10 best years of his life to the Lord. He and June sold off their successful agency in 1994 to go into full-time ministry. He then spent seven of the 10 years as a full-time pastor. He returned to the marketplace after that, re-entering the insurance space in 2014.

In that short span of time, the couple started their own agency again and he got into the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), a global association that recognises top-performing life insurance agents and financial advisors around the world.

Within a short span of five years, Ronald and June qualified as Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) members. He credits his career success to God as he learned to apply Biblical principles to his life and work.

He credits his success to his faith, which has given him a very different perspective of what insurance can do for people. He is intentional about passing this wisdom on to his team and, whenever possible, he also tries to influence the wider company culture.

People, not digits

Seet stresses that it is important that insurance agents, or those in a commission-based job, do not view every person they come across as potential business.

“I always say to my team, number one, the most important thing is to learn to take an interest in people’s lives,” he said. This was how his business just grew, simply by loving people.

He recounted: “I spent six months with this guy, I really love him and care for him. I never once told him about insurance. One morning at breakfast in the hawker centre, he asked me about insurance. Not long after, I walked away with $75,000 in premium – which is a lot.”

Ronald always reminds his team: “The most important thing is to learn to take an interest in people’s lives.”

Curious, Seet, who by then was close enough to the man, asked: “Why do you want to do business with me?”

“Ronald, there are eight people chasing me to buy insurance for the last five years. But I’ve chosen you because I’ve watched you. For the last six months, you never once asked me. Instead, you took an interest in my life, you really care for me and you really prayed with me,” came the reply.

Seet likens loving people to what Jesus did when He came down from heaven to earth to reconcile us back to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18)

“Be willing to reach out, cross that barrier and do life alongside them. Spend time and be interested in their lives – that’s pastoral care,” noted the bivocational pastor.

Love is a verb

“Do you need permission to love people? No, you just love them. For God so loved the world that He gave of Himself, not kept to Himself! (John 3:16)

“Love is a verb. It has to be expressed and given. We don’t keep love in our hearts and say ‘I love you’. Nonsense!” boomed Seet. “So we reach out to people and we touch their lives.”

And because he views his work as ministry, it has given him the boldness to pray for anyone that he crosses paths with. He recalled an encounter when he found out a friend, who is one of his top clients, was very ill.

Seet texted: “I want to pray for you. More than all the premiums that you’ve given me, what is most important is that I want you to get well. Can I bring along a pastor friend to visit you?”

His friend agreed. A week later, Seet texted the wife to find out how he is.

“After the prayer, they found out that it was not what they thought it was. The doctors ordered a simple procedure and he was up and about the very next day. God touched him and he witnessed the power of God working in him,” revealed Seet, who took immense joy that a seed had been sown.

Marketplace minister

But he is not content with just making a difference in the lives of those he is in immediate contact with. It was this desire to make an even greater impact for the Kingdom of God that led him to start a Christian fellowship group in 1986, which continues to meet today.

“When people ask me how big is my church, I always tell them it is 5,000-strong because there are 5,000 agents in Prudential – that’s my church. But how many people come to the fellowship? Fifty. Why? Because my church is not a building, it is this place that I am planted,” he said as he sat in his office located in Prudential@Scotts.

“If there is rubbish on the floor when I walk along the corridor, I pick it up. If the carpets are crooked, I bend down to straightened them. If there is tissue on the toilet floor, I’ll take another piece of tissue and pick it up.

“People look at me and ask, ‘Are you crazy?! What are you doing?’ I say, ‘No, this is God’s church. I want His presence to be here.’ I want to do the little bit I can to minister to people. And how can I not be fastidious with the temple of God?”

Besides taking care of his surroundings, Seet admits he has done unusual things to cross cultures into others’ lives. One that he does frequently is greeting an office lift full of strangers with “Good morning, Prudential!”

“They will all look at me as though I’m crazy. Then I’d ask, ‘This whole building is Prudential. Anyone not from Prudential?'” That would often draw embarrassed nods and smiles.

“We may not all be friends but I’m sure we can all be friendly. We can’t say truly say we value people and our values mean a lot if we can’t even greet each other.”

Ronald was given the chance to share his thoughts with the rest of the Prudential Singapore team at MDRT 2019. He took to opportunity to share the principles by which he does business.

Ahead of last year’s MDRT conference in Sydney, he prayed: “God, I want to impact these people. How do I do this?” To his surprise, he was called upon to say something to Prudential Singapore representatives at the conference.

Seet took the opportunity to share the story about the Blue Ribbon corn, where the farmer of the prize-winning corn would freely share his best seed corn with his neighbours. It was counter-initiative until the farmer revealed that by doing so, it protects his corn from cross-pollinating with inferior corn from other fields.

“When people do well, you must help them to succeed, not tear them down. When people succeed, we must celebrate their success. When everybody at Prudential succeeds, it means we have the best products; we can truly celebrate as number one.

“Number one not in terms of the amount of insurance sold, but number one in our attitudes and in our perspectives,” he concluded.

“Jesus is a master cross-cultural person. He crossed cultures to meet with the Samaritan woman at the well. (John 4:1-26) He took time to take an interest in people’s lives. It is a mindset, a paradigm that we have to shift and we have to determine inside our hearts that that’s what we want to do.”

“If you find an opportunity, grab it and just touch lives. That’s how I have been reaching out.”

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