Philamlife’s Nell Laudico: Former banker finds greater accomplishment in selling insurance

One industry’s loss is another industry’s gain. This is what Nelia "Nell" Laudico’s departure from the banking sector proved when she moved into the challenging field of life insurance selling. Today, she is one of Philamlife’s top agents and agency leaders – with a string of awards to show for it.

Indeed, Nell has carved a name for herself in the insurance business, having received prestigious honors like the Million Dollar Round Table Award – an international recognition given to the top six percent of the best life insurance practitioners worldwide. She has also received the International Jet Setter Award and the Premier Agent – Platinum Level, among others. The Premier Agent Award is the most prestigious recognition introduced three years ago by American International Group (AIG) New York – Philamlife’s mother company – for superior performance in quality business, exceptional performance and high professional agency values by an agent. Nell has consistently won the highest level, Platinum. In the year 2000, there were only seven Platinum premier agents in the entire company.

For Recognition Year 2000, Nell was the recipient of the Special Achievement Award, First Runner-Up – Manila Agencies, Career Agent category. This was in recognition of her being the company’s most productive career agent for the year. While she is an equally dynamic and multi-awarded agency leader, her consistent string of achievements as a career agent is her way of role-modeling for her associates.

Initial reluctance

Like many others in her field, Nell did not plan to be in the insurance business. She was enjoying the challenges – not to mention the pay, perks and prestige of working for an American offshore bank. She was comfortable in her high profile job of dealing with top executives both from the business and banking sectors as deputy representative banker of the Marine Midland Bank of New York. This was why her maternal aunt, Lulu del Mundo – Philamlife’s first lady agency manager – could not persuade her to be part of her agency any earlier.

But as fate would have it, Marine Midland Bank had a global reorganization in 1993. With her experience and marketing expertise (she was awarded best marketing officer in Hong Kong), Nell would not have had trouble keeping her job. However, she welcomed an early retirement program.

With a handsome retirement pay and a husband who could very well provide for the family, Nell was actually looking forward to spending more time with her growing family. But Ms. Del Mundo got wind of her decision and wasted no time in inviting her again to join Philamlife. Having no more excuse to turn her down, Nell soon found herself attending the company’s career orientation seminar.

Ensuring success

Determined to always make a difference in everything she does, Nell decided early on that if she pursued this new career, she would not be just another insurance agent. So she supplemented her training at Philamlife with specialized courses in life insurance selling. She enrolled herself in a life insurance underwriting course – an international program.

"It’s like taking a full college course in life insurance," she said. As she moved to agency management in 1995, she took up the Agency Management Training Course and Essentials in Management Development special courses given by the General Agents and Managers Association where she is an active member. Nell now shares everything she learned from these programs as a Class Moderator. To Nell, continuing education is the key to becoming a professional life insurance agent. She has just come back from the 6th Asia Pacific Insurance Congress (APLIC) in Bangkok which was attended by more than 10,000 life agents in the Asia Pacific region.

Nell attests that life insurance selling isn’t easy, especially in this country where majority of the people either don’t believe in the concept of insurance or do not have the money to acquire one. Despite these setbacks, however, she remains unfazed.

"The mission really is to educate the people on the importance of life insurance because it applies to everybody – rich and poor alike," she emphasized. "What I always tell my new recruits whenever I facilitate my lectures is that we are here on a mission. The commission income is secondary."

Nell knows exactly what she speaks of: she eats, breathes and lives life insurance. In fact, she has sold policies to people from all walks of life – from corporate CEOs to carpenters. "I believe that everybody should have life insurance, no matter how small the amount of coverage," she declared. "The challenge really is to make the people appreciate the value of life insurance and help them protect their families against the uncertainties of the future, saving for old age and disability."

Reaping the fruits

Indeed, selling life insurance may not appeal to everybody. But for Nell, it‘s a career like no other. "It’s a special career because it is about building trusting relationships. It goes beyond the client-agent business level. Every client becomes a client for life and ultimately a friend," she said.

Of course, a career in the life insurance business is financially rewarding, and the perks are likewise attractive. One of Nell’s most memorable trips was in Shanghai as her reward for consecutively winning the Platinum Premier Agent honors in 1998 and 1999. She took special pride to be among the most elite agents of AIG in Southeast Asia. She won the same award for the third time this year and is only one of seven Platinum Premier awardees of Philamlife. Her triple Premier Platinum awards are her answer to President Jose L. Cuisia’s challenge to agents of Philamlife for work excellence, high productivity and ethical practices and quality servicing of clients. The Premier Platinum meeting is scheduled in January 2002 in Japan. For the time being, she is looking forward to attending the Million Dollar Round Table in Toronto, Canada this June.

Nell‘s high performance in the life insurance business is well balanced with a happy and successful family life and community service. She has four children - Laine and Leanne who are young executives in multinational companies, LJ will soon graduate from Ateneo and Lauren, a grade V student at Poveda. She is also a grandmother to 3-year old Mickey.

In 1997, she was a recipient of the Papal Award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice together with her spouse, Louie, who incidentally has now joined her in the business as an associate unit manager after having served Petron for 27 years as a marketing executive. The award was in recognition of the couple’s more than 20 year’s work for the youth and the parishes they served. They remain active in the youth and family life ministries at the Christ the King Parish in Green Meadows.

As a career, life insurance selling has proven to be Nell’s true calling. With her professionalism, enthusiasm and dedication to the job, the life insurance industry is better for it. Now, that’s an assurance.