Paranoid…. That’s where the Insurance Industry likes to uncomfortably have us all, perpetually worried that bad stuff is around the corner just waiting to happen.
And they’ve got a great sales pitch, ‘But What If ?’
What if someone runs into your car as you’re backing out of your driveway?
What if your house burns down?
What if a drug addict breaks into your house and steals your valuables?
What if you lose your job?
What if you’re struck down by a life-threatening illness?
What if you die, not leaving behind enough money to cover the funeral expenses?
There’s a shit load of Bad Stuff just waiting to happen out there!
The ‘What If ’ list is exponential for worrywarts and paranoid sorts.
But rest assured that there’s an insurance policy offering ‘peace of mind’!
Actuaries are statisticians- number crunchers employed by Insurance companies to calculate risks and assess the likelihood of misfortune and calamity eventuating.
The odds are invariably stacked in the favour of Insurance companies, moreover that things generally turn out for the better. They occasionally take a Big Hit where they have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars with natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, The Queensland floods, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill etc but the model invariably works in their favour. Not unlike a high rolling gambler at a casino.
The statistics favour Shit Not Happening.
If it was otherwise they wouldn’t have a viable business model.
The Life Risk Insurance market has just had its fastest-growing rate in 20 years.
Television ads are awash with the usual suspects of Car, House and Medical protection cover, alongside income protection & disability- life policies. And to make sure you’ve got all bases covered for the Final Goodbye they’ve been flogging funeral expenses insurance cover as well.
They’re in the business of selling gloomy outcomes.
A couple of years ago my comprehensive car insurance policy increased considerably after shifting and moving suburbs. At the time I took umbrage and decided to cancel my policy altogether. I took comfort from my brother’s experiences. He’s a car wholesaler who owns dozens of cars at any given time and he Doesn’t Insure Any of Them because of the prohibitive costs involved.
I did some number crunching of my own and came to the conclusion that if he can drive and store all these cars and get away without insuring any of them and generally avoiding shit happening, why couldn’t I do away with insuring just one car?
I’ve subsequently taken personal responsibility on myself.
In the event that I’m involved in an incident which is my fault I’ll have to pay, I’m fully aware of my potential liabilities.
Self-determination is empowering and cost-effective, that is if Shit Doesn‘t Happen. Insurance firms bet on nasties not happening while sowing the likelihood of doom and gloom scenarios to punters.
‘But What If?’
At the age of 87, my father had a preventive prostate operation. His first visit to a hospital as a patient. He’d been dutifully paying his private Health Insurance for over 30 years and he and my mother never made any claims on their health insurer. He’d been paying them contributions for decades while they both enjoyed terrific health for a couple of their age. When he came out of hospital my mother ironically told him, “you know what, instead of having paid all this money to these people [ Insurance company], we should have invested that money into property. In the event we had had any medical expenses, we could easily have paid for any bills out of our own pocket. And we’d have been much better off financially.”
My father didn’t like having his prudence questioned, visibly annoyed he retorted with,
“That’s all well and good, but what if?”
And that’s the principle pitch of Insurance companies,
‘But What If ?’.
Fabrizio Marsani
fmarsani@yahoo.com.au
