Interview of the Week: David Treal, founder of AG Cambodia
This week, Senior Communications Officer Stew Post sat down with David Treal, founder of AG Cambodia, one of the country's longest running foreign operated insurance companies. The pair discussed David's unorthodox journey into the insurance industry, his lifelong passion for music and his return to performing that is culminating in an album launch this month.
Read the full interview below.
Stew: Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself – where are you from, what is your business background and how did you end up in Cambodia?
David: My professional background is not conventional, and it was completely by chance that I ended up in the insurance business.
After I graduated from school in France I started to pursue music, and my professional career actually started as a musician. I had the chance to work and study in the US, so until I was 24, I was living in the US and playing drums. I was really trained as a professional drummer and when I came back to France, that was my job. I was playing drums in bands, organising concerts in clubs, hotels, casinos, weddings, you name it.
However, being a musician is a very hard way to live in the long term because there is not much stability. Even though you are living some magical moments you are also living with uncertainty.
Eventually, I was bringing a band to play in Thailand. We were insured with a French broker who was established in Thailand, and he wanted to open an office in Cambodia. I happened to come here for a holiday shortly after and found that there were almost no agents at all, no brokers established, so I thought that there was a niche market for insurance in Cambodia. It came at a time when I thought it was time for a shift in my career; it was time to take a steady job.
Stew: You've been running AG Insurance in Cambodia for nearly 20 years. What was the insurance sector like in Cambodia in those early years?
David: As I said, when I first arrived here in 2006, there were almost no insurance agents, compared to Thailand, where there were dozens of brokers.
I opened AG with an associate; our office at the time was in the Cambodiana Hotel and rent was only three hundred dollars per month. The first year it was a challenge just to make enough to pay rent and salary for our single employee, but we continued, and business picked up as Cambodia developed. The country developed and our business developed following the growth of the country. People were coming and investing, and they needed and insurer, so they came to us.
Stew: How has the business landscape in Cambodia changed since you first opened?
David: From the customer perspective, insurance is a boring topic, so I was very surprised when I first started and spoke about insurance to other expats here, they said, “Oh, you sell insurance, that's great, wonderful, when can I buy it from you?” I thought, wow, really?
People were really happy to find AG because they wanted western advice and service, and they didn't have much trust in the local insurers. If they were purchasing their international health insurance, they didn't know where to start and at the time the internet was very slow, so they could only buy it from France over the phone. It was really not easy to purchase insurance.
Once I built confidence – in insurance, you only build confidence when you pay claims – so as soon as I paid a few big claims, people started to think, AG is something that's reliable.
Business continued growing and three years later I was able to buy back the shares my partner invested and take 100% ownership of AG.
From the business perspective, when I first started, there was no competition and little regulation. Today, many professionals have established themselves and new players must innovate, be compliant with the regulations and compete with their best skills.
There is also more room for the next generation that is familiar with new tools such as AI and new developments in IT. In the meantime, Cambodia still has a lot of growth margins in all sectors, so recruiting and training the staff and finding talents is key for achieving success.
Today, the young graduates and the more experienced professionals have many amazing skills and their patience and thirst for learning should do the rest.
Stew: You stepped away from music for quite a while. Why was that and what inspired you to start playing again?
David: Next year I'm going to celebrate 20 years of AG and when I started this job, I put music on the side, and I told no one I was a musician. Because who's going to trust a musician?
I took my drums and put them in the corner and for a decade nobody knew anything about me being a musician. After 10 years or so I started to gain confidence in the business – I had established the company to a certain level where I had a strong team – and I decided to take out the drums and set them up again and play a little bit.
In 2015 I started writing songs and in 2019, I finally came out with my first album. My second album I wrote in 2020 during COVID. My new album will come out in May. It's been six months since we started recording it with maybe 20 people working on this album together. I just received yesterday the final mix and I'm very excited with what we've achieved.
We'll be playing the Hard Rock in Phnom Penh on 8 May and then we'll be going on a tour of Cambodia.
Stew: Your path into the insurance business may have been unconventional, but you have secured a prominent position in the industry. What has kept you in this sector after so many years?
David: This business is really about establishing relationships with all kinds of people because everyone needs insurance. If you sell tennis rackets, you only meet tennis players. But we sell insurance for everyone, from companies to children to housewives to whoever else might need insurance. It's great because you get to know many industries and you get to understand the risk of all those industries and how they work. It's quite interesting if you're a curious person.
But the best thing about this job is that you really get to help people when they are in need. Helping people that are in dire situations, whether it's for health issues, a car accident or losing their house in a fire. When I am able to to have a successful claim that helps someone, that's the most satisfaction I get.
Check out David's for his latest release. To get updates on music & tour dates, join his
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