Insurance is one of the most important financial topics in today’s complex world. Failure to have sufficient insurance coverage is the quickest and easiest way to accrue mass debt. Nothing will make your business, car, house, family, or self more vulnerable or susceptible to financial strain than a lack of adequate insurance. However, paying too much for insurance can be a financial strain in itself. And paying for insurance that is not needed is just money down the drain.
Many people have a preconceived notion that insurance is just a waste of money, something that is not necessary. This is not true. Almost everyone needs insurance. How do you know? If you own anything that cannot be easily replaced without economic hardship, it should be insured. If your house burned down, what would you do? If you became disabled at work, would there still be food on the table? Or, in the worst case, would your family be provided for if you passed away?
These are tough scenarios to imagine, but they happen every day. It is important to understand the consequences and to be prepared for the worst. Some people tend to think of insurance as a luxury, but this is not true at all. Insurance is simply a way to avoid an impoverished state.
Like many things in life, the decision to purchase insurance or not is based on a system of risk/reward. Unfortunately, consumers often look at the reward and ignore the risk altogether. This can impede the process of making an educated decision. For example, the lottery is a very popular system of risk / reward. In this case, the risk is generally small, but the reward can be great, making it a popular choice. Gambling in casinos is another example. In this case, some people become so fixated on the reward that they forget the risk of losing. Think of insurance as an inverted version of the lottery. The reward (not paying for insurance and therefore saving an immediate expenditure) is miniscule compared to the possible risk (losing everything you own and being in debt for the rest of your life). And sadly, the chances of your number coming up in the insurance game are a lot greater than your chances of winning millions.
Hopefully, you now realize that insurance is a necessary part of today’s world. So let’s move on. There are four questions you should have in mind when you set out to purchase insurance.
There is also a fifth question that you should continually ask yourself when deciding about your insurance needs.
What happens if I’m not covered?
What really happens if you aren’t covered, whether it’s not enough of a particular type of insurance or none at all? Imagine a scenario and play it out in your head. Will it even affect you? Can you recover from it at all? We will go through some basic scenarios together and you can decide for yourself.