Roti, Kapda, Mediclaim, Life Insurance, Contingency Fund aur Makaan

 

Roti, Kapda, Mediclaim, Life Insurance, Contingency Fund aur Makaan

 

Please note the blog has not been proof-read or grammatically corrected by reading it multiples times. I had promised myself that I will write something to create awareness around Life Insurance and Mediclaim. There couldn’t have been a more opportune time. So I just let my thoughts flow….

 

June 2007, Life was great. I was living the dream – MBA Finance got into a reputed investment bank, I was breathing equities (something that I always loved) and had started earning as well. All that came crashing down one fine day. My Dad had travelled to our native for some-work and there had a small shoe bite. Shoe bite- OK so what’s the big deal. Over next couple of days due to gross negligence on his part and on ours that small shoe bite gradually became an infection leading to excess carbon dioxide in his body.

When he started feeling a bit restless we got him admitted to a local nursing centre because he never had any other health issues. All of 25 whilst I spend the night with him I could never guage his discomfort nor did I realize that next 60 days are probably going to be the toughest of my life (and my family). He became more restless over next 24 hours and in swift emergency we got him admitted to Hinduja Hospital, Mahim. As I stayed the night over, it never occurred to me that things would get so serious over next 20 days or so. His pulse started dropping, saturation levels kept dropping. Barrage of tests were done across organs heart, lungs, kidney etc to figure out what was amiss. Opinions ranged from a heart problem/attack to kidney dysfunction to lungs infection and likes. It took them almost 7-8 days to figure out that the problem was none of these. Gradually blue marks started appearing on his body – signs of infection and excess carbon-dioxide in the body. By the time they figured that out the body was fast giving up and apart from putting him on a ventilator there was no way to save him. My Mom as she had always been was a pillar of strength. Although she feared the worst how would she let her kids know that they might lose their father forever.

The beautiful dream just came crashing down. Even as we feared the worst, we prayed for a miracle.

Now comes the crux of this post. I was 25 at that time and as is the case in most Indian middle-class households the finances were all managed by my dad with miniscule oversight by my Mom. I had just started earning and wanted to explore the world before getting burdened by financial planning. So here we were – the only person who had a complete perspective about our financials was on a ventilator in a hospital and we had no idea of how we will manage life going forward. Whilst sleeping in the rest area for ICU patients I would be woken up from my horrid dreams by bed number buzzers night after night only to realize that the battle is still on. This ordeal went on for 60 days or so within which my Dad slipped onto/out of Ventilator twice. Bills were mounting and it was all about managing the next 50k-100k to be paid.

Luckily for us 3-4 things really helped us 1) My elder sister had been working for some-time so she had a pool, 2) Some joint accounts had some money which could have been mobilized, 3) God bless ICICI Bank for being aggressive on Credit Cards and issuing it to someone with only a year or work-ex, 4) Solid family eco-system of my Dad’s Elder Brother and other close relatives who helped us both monetarily and emotionally to glide through this. Also despite being just one year into work I got some phenomenal support from – Mr. Shriram Iyer (then our Head of Research), Priyanko Rockstar Panja (my lead analyst), Sid Sanghvi (my co-analyst + brother), Ajitesh Nair (brother) and so many other colleagues.

Suddenly at 25 – I had life asking me so many questions all at once. There were times I felt like just quitting this Life’s exam but eventually with the support system just hung in there. This episode changed my whole perspective to life and to financial planning and priorities in Life. My Dad eventually recovered after almost a 3-month ordeal. Since my Mom used to work with Mumbai Port Trust and both of them were covered under their scheme my Dad had never bothered to get a Mediclaim for himself. Gravity of the situation forced us to admit him in emergency and we could not follow the procedure as laid out by Mumbai Port Trust. It meant that the expenses had to be borne by us with no resource to any medical aid.

The reason why im penning down this blog in such haste is it’s the most opportune time to re-emphasize some basic tenets of financial planning. We are in the midst of the 2^nd wave of Covid which has not only broken the healthcare eco-system in India but has broken families, broken hearts and rendered so many kids without their parents. The number of instances of 20-30-40 year olds losing their lives is just insane. We are hearing so many such stories that we have almost become numb to such occurrences. Cries for help where in a sole-bread earner has succumbed or where both parents have succumbed leaving kids behind or where old parents have been left behind with nobody to take care of. While I sincerely hope and pray that something of this magnitude never happens in our lifetime there are some really important lessons for us.   

However good or bad life is it just goes on and we have to go along with it. As I gathered myself over the next few days in late 2007 I realized some very important lessons in life.

·         Always loop in your family/kids/close friends/anybody trust worthy into the crux of your financials – just in case the need be for a stormy day

·         Always have a contingency fund of at least 6-9 months of your expenses + if you can have some added on Medical contingency fund it would be ideal

·         After Roti n Kapda – The 2 most important things in life are Mediclaim and Life Insurance

I cannot emphasize this statement enough. Most people tend to undermine the whole aspect of Insurance for health/life saying “abhi toh im young itna jaldi thodi kuch hoga”. Please please don’t make this mistake. Even before Covid we have had umpteenth instances in our friend circle where 30-34-38 year olds have expired to heart attack and life doesn’t serve you a notice period. In case something untoward is to happen to us we at-least need to protect our families against that.

Even in this wave we have received so many requests for help to contribute towards families which have lost their sole bread earners. Unfortunately, a lot of these guys/girls were finance graduates and from some of the best institutes in this country IIT/IIM/ISB and dint have a Life Insurance Policy. Back in 2007 while my Dad was still in the hospital the first thing I did was get a Mediclaim Policy for us 3 siblings even if it meant I would have had to borrow from relatives for premium I would have done that.

Im not really getting into how to approach getting a Mediclaim policy or life insurance policy in this blog. Any of you feel the need don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. To the best of my ability ill definitely help you out.

However please don’t forget

1.     Both Life Insurance Policy and Mediclaim is a must

2.     Start as early as possible – premiums are always lower at early age + if you don’t claim the bonuses just keep adding up

3.     This is my personal advice – Life Insurance please stick to term plans. Don’t venture into endowment plans. Apni Gujarati/Marwadi Buddhi ki mera paisa chala jayega ko side main rakho aur yeh socho ki main chala gaya toh mere ghar walon ka kya hoga

Please do help create awareness about this amongst your Maids, Aaya, Watchmen etc. While I was pushing so vehemently in my close circles to create awareness, unfortunately we lost our office boy Mr. Vinay Walve to Covid-19 in May 2020. I couldn’t get him to buy in a proper Mediclaim or Life cover else who knows if he had got proper medical aid he might have still been with us. We are doing our best to take care of his son’s education and chipping in wherever possible.

I just hope that the Governments/Noda Agencies takes up Insurance/Mediclaim awareness much more seriously than Mutual Funds Sahi Hai especially since the Covid-19 experience is fresh.

Also given that a lot of people’s lives have been completely shattered due to Covid-19, we will need to chip in to pull them out. Do the best you can.

“Dil bada rakho, Zindagi toh aise hi Chotti hai”

Stay safe everyone!!! We are in this together and we will overcome!!!