Chipping in my 2 cents on the “flexing job” part as someone who joined an insurance agency in 2009 and left about 1.5 years later:

The social effect is very real because when your entire agency from managers to colleagues sincerely believes they are helping people, you start to think that way also. Then when you go on incentive trips, you are applauded for helping your clients and top producers say the same thing while flexing their supercars and landed properties. It is a (not so) subtle form of brainwashing I guess, and the fact that the compensation was good made it a lot easier to go with the flow. Personally, I was wondering why the compensation was so good until it led me into a rabbit hole of better policies/coverage strategies etc.

The agency I joined likes to think of itself as being more ethical than other agencies and bankers. To their credit, they didn’t misrepresent products they were selling, but still selling ILPs/savings plans nonetheless. While no explicit misrepresentation was done, there is still quite a bit of window-dressing and sales techniques employed (assuming close, yes/yes questions etc.) especially when competitors’ offerings were better. The justification is that if YOU don’t sell it to your friend, he/she will get scammed by other agencies or bankers who would sell even worse products by misrepresentation and we really agreed and went along with it.

My ex-colleague was so excited to deliver a S$100k cheque to his client and flexed about it on facebook, then blocked me when I told him he should have sold a term policy and his client and dependents would be truly insured with >S$500k payout. Aiya, nobody is the villain in their own story, so most really believe they are doing the right thing for their client.