Introducing Danielle Warner, From the United States of America, CEO & Founder, Expat Insurance
All of 21 when she graduated from college, Danielle met her future husband, a British colleague in the company’s international division, just a year later. It was a whirlwind romance of three months, after which he moved to Singapore. … Danielle decided to [follow], a decision that wasn’t easy to make.
She took to heart the advice given by her girlfriend, who said, “You must see it as an adventure at 23. If you don’t do it now, you will regret it. You are at a stage in your life where if it goes all wrong, you can come back and your career won’t be destroyed.”
She hit a tough emotional patch after being in the country for two years. “I wanted to rebuild my career that had started so well in New York. I wasn’t feeling very fulfilled here and really struggled as a woman who was in Singapore without being married.” Danielle voices the challenges that many an expat partner faces when she lands in Singapore. She says that there is an expectation that here you will be able to recreate what or where you came from. “Everyone expects it. But that never happens.” Danielle’s voice softens. She had seen this emotional upheaval in so many lives.
Soon after though, things started looking up. On a visit to an art gallery to pick up a couple of pieces, Danielle met the owner, British entrepreneur Chris Churcher. A former investment banker, Chris had joined his wife in following their passion for art. Danielle started working at Red Sea Gallery, managing the gallery and working on a rebranding exercise. “It was back to my marketing days and I was excited to do it for a cool brand.” Unfortunately, the tenure was cut short by the global financial crisis that impacted the business.
Almost on cue, the sun blazes through the clouds after a sudden afternoon shower. Danielle’s eyes light up as she tells us about her first baby.
“It was my boyfriend who came up with the idea. When we were travelling as an unmarried couple, we could never buy an insurance policy together. There wasn’t a convenient way to buy it either. I remember once we ended up on an AIG Canada webpage!” Danielle realised rather quickly that finding policies was tough, even for someone who knew this inside and out.
“We were both in insurance, had worked with AIG, one of the biggest players in the sector and we couldn’t find our own insurance! What are the chances that other expats could do this?” And that germinated the idea of Expat Insurance. “Let us be the people who can provide this advice!”
It didn’t quite turn out like that. Her boyfriend chose to stay on at his corporate job and Danielle took on the mantle of setting up the company. She worked through visa issues and requisite professional qualifications needed to offer insurance advice. From there on, it was all about learning new skills along the way.
“First off, I had to go out and pitch to three big insurance companies to become their agent. I was just a girl with an idea—no portfolio and I had never sold insurance before! I had never sold anything before actually,” she guffaws. “Apart from perhaps, my relocation to my mother.”
Expat Insurance was officially launched on January 1, 2010. But Danielle had already tested the waters through her network built over three years. Galleries, associations, professional networks—she covered them all and the feedback was overwhelming.
“We started when the financial crisis was at its worst, and looking back I can’t think of a better time to have set it up. Our business could adapt to the client base. Expat packages were shrinking. We could tell the big insurers that the products had to change because our client demands were evolving,” she says.
About Sushmita Mohapatra
Sometimes all you need to hear is a good story. A story that shows it can be done.’
An expat life is complicated in its simplicity. I walked into it with blinkered vision, unaware of the emotional turmoil, the immense amount of self-doubt and apprehensions that would confront me every single day. Vulnerable one day, confident the next. Nothing had prepared me for life away from the comfort zone that I grew up in.
A working woman, a trailing spouse, a new mother—some roles were new, others seemed to have changed the rules of the game. The most heartening thing was that there was immense support in the ecosystem. Most people I met, went out of their way to help, making time for coffee, conversations and connections.
There were two things that stood out. One was the comfort of knowing that so many had gone through similar struggles and emerged with impactful success stories. And the second was the warm approach that people had to change here. Even today, it continues to surprise me that things can change so much overnight. Favourite stores and playrooms shut down, people leave, friends come in, new bonds are built and some are maintained over social media. To be all encompassing in your acceptance to anything thrown your way, is pretty much the mantra of survival.
Every single day, a new person stands at the threshold of life that I was at. And I wanted to do my bit and help.
So I wrote. It had to be about stories that I knew how to write, and about real heroes, because they inspired me. In some way, it also had to be about changing a much-misconstrued narrative around expat life being all about pristine beach holidays, shopping trips and spa vacations.
‘Dear Ms Expat’ is an attempt to reach out to every woman who faces a curveball she hadn’t planned for, in a land far, far away.
About Savitha Venugopal
It has been almost four years since I moved out of my home country. I came as a ‘trailing spouse’, both reluctant and excited at the same time. Reluctant because I was leaving behind a career and heading for uncertainty; excited for all the obvious reasons – a new place, that too a global city like Singapore, and all the wonderful possibilities it presented.
But no matter where you are, a journalist remains a journalist. You see potential stories everywhere. Especially so when you are in a new place, looking at it from a fresh perspective. As someone who has always been an active participant in the discussion on women’s issues, it was but natural that I was drawn towards the lives of women here. Expat women in particular, who had come into Singapore much the same as I had.
Just the stories of friends and neighbours were eye-opening as to how resourceful and enterprising women can be when taken out of their comfort zones. Where it was difficult to find jobs, they used their skills to teach, volunteer or set up small businesses. Where they found opportunities, they adapted and reinvented themselves. They let their passion lead them, they found new interests. There is, in short, no holding them back.
And once you’ve had a taste of these stories, you look for more and you find the more impactful ones – both exhilarating and heart wrenching. The world is full of such moving and inspiring tales waiting to be told. For me, Dear Ms Expat is but a beginning; a first step in giving voice to women’s stories.
Dear Ms Expat ISBN: 9789814779005 U.P: S$19.96 with GST - a heartening collection of 10 diverse real-life stories of accomplished expat women in Singapore who reinvent themselves to become entrepreneurs, advocates, writers, leaders while juggling successful careers alongside families and motherhood in a new environment.
