RE: Insurance? Not Yet.

I guess I'll have to get to writing on this topic. I'm in Indonesia so I'm one topic behind but insurance is something that is important to me so I read what you wrote and I'll throw in my comment :)

First: It is mostly true that if you have to choose between eating a meal and buying insurance you have to choose the meal. Health insurance is important but proper nutrition, a stable place to sleep, clean water and such will do more to protect your health than an insurance policy ever will.

Second: Where you live matters. Not all insurance policies are equally strong or equally available and quite honestly, equally important. Also affordability matters also. Some insurance is cheap enough that I think it should absolutely be considered.

Unfortunately I can only give Canadian examples but here they are.

One of the first things I got my son to do was get a credit card. In Nigeria credit cards are horrible things not to be touched or trusted. However, in Canada my son got a card with ZERO fees (as long as he pays it off every month). Here is the thing though with the credit card he gets 1% cashback on everything but more importantly he gets insurance on every purchase.... Free.

If his cellphone dies after the warranty (1 year) and before 2 years time he gets a new cellphone at no charge. If your cellphone on HIVE to make money how valuable is knowing you get 2 years of guaranteed income. Just last month I got a brand new laptop free using exactly the same credit card insurance.

Life insurance is also something that can be quite inexpensive. In Canada the price of life insurance from the day my son was born until the day he was 16 cost me about the same as one meal a month.

In return if I died before my son was old enough to look after himself he would receive a sum of money large enough to make sure he could go to University, live comfortably for at least until he was 21, and have a little money to get started in life. That was really important to me. As a father it was my absolute responsibility to make sure that my son got a chance in life. If I was alive and working I would do everything I could to make sure he had that chance. If I died? Well, that's why I had the insurance to make sure he still had that chance.

However, I see many types of insurance like whole life insurance which is a scam. I see expensive extended warranty programs which are just money grabs by the store. My wife was even offered life insurance before she was married and had any dependents which is totally crazy...

Ahh... but I'm getting long. Just wanted to say I totally agree when you are struggling to make sure every daily need is met insurance can be a "someday but not today" and I will totally agree with that. However, there are sometimes where if you look at the fine print of credit cards, or different programs come up... I would recommend reading about them and give it a thought. Sure you may have to say no many many times and that is fine....but if something comes up like my son's credit card program...at no cost...why not say yes :)

(Unless you are in Nigeria where every credit card I looked at was just terrible).

Thanks for writing and have a great day.