Fear. Basest of all human emotions.
Fear. Justification for committing genocide.
Fear. Excuse for overthrowing governments.
Fear. Reason for starting wars.
Fear. Grounds for sanctioning assassinations.
Fear. Instrument for spreading terror.
Fear. Tactic for controlling populations.
More prevalent today than its main competitors, namely, love, hate, happiness and sorrow, Fear peaked a few years back when our lives became increasingly colorful. Yellow, Orange, Red, etc. While the fear index may have dropped from its all time high set in recent history, it's exploitation has not abated much if at all. I fear - pun very much intended - it may be on the upswing, but not for reasons you might expect. Why do I think so? Read on.
Fear, of falling sick? Or Fear not having Health Insurance?
Fear, of wrecking your car? Or Fear not having enough liability coverage?
Fear, of death? Or Fear leaving your family saddled with debt?
Fear, of not being able to provide required health care to your patients? Or Fear the rising cost of Malpractice Insurance?
How do we fight Fear? Through it's antidote in modern society, namely, Insurance.
No sooner you mention in passing you are worried about something, you can bet your behind someone is already peddling insurance to protect from or against that something. The less widespread the Fear, the more unregulated it's insurance peddlers. Until marketing makes the Fear more prevalent at which point, the attention turns to the Next (Big) Fear, which dooms us to beget insurance for it.
Fire Fire Fire. Buy Unemployment Insurance (Gotcha! You were thinking Hazard Insurance weren't you? Heh heh heh)
Too rich for your own good and/or residing in unfriendly countries? Buy K&R - Kidnap and Ransom - Insurance, I kid you not.
Fear. The Fuel used for combustion in the Vehicle that is Insurance, driving us down the road often traveled, for the sake of making a quick buck.
"You Conservative Prick! You Insurance Industry Hating Liberal! You Independent Asshole! How dare you tell me not to protect myself with insurance? I'm going to need my Senility Insurance someday, you bastard!".
Puh-lease. I have nothing against insurance or buying insurance for the right intents and purposes. I have all kinds of insurance myself. I even know people who are in the insurance business. To the best of my knowledge, the ones I know personally are mostly God-fearing people. The remaining fear others in their life, such as myself, slapping them silly if they do something wrong. Besides, I haven't even said much if anything, yet. And now seems to be as good a time as any to clarify my position.
In my last blog I didn't have nothing against Yoga. Likewise, I have nothing against Insurance. Then, I was simply trying to enlighten folks about Yoga (ahem) Instructors. Now, I'm trying to contribute toward yawl making an informed decision regarding something else. Capiche?
Confession time. Recently I canceled my Termite Insurance. Yup. I got scammed, but it lasted just two months. Honest! You see, I thought I was buying Termite Protection. What in blazes was I thinking? Silly me. I had pondered thus :
* I retain a company which employs experts in all things Termite.
* I pay a premium monthly, quarterly, annually, whatever so they'll come to my house monthly, quarterly, annually, whatever and give my house a clean bill of health.
* The idea is to ensure - not insure (sic) - my house is not being attacked by Termites.
Is the above a novel concept? Turns out most think it is. These days, we are seldom interested in doing anything preventive. The potential victim simply buys insurance. The insurance provider gladly takes the money but without any liability.
"You are wrong! We at Termites For Us are the smartest bunch on the planet. Our staff collectively has 5000 years of experience in the Termite, Insurance, and Termite Insurance (Ding Dong!) industries. You don't know what You want. We know what You want. Here are but a few of the many facts regarding Termite Insurance you need to know :
1. Most homes do not get attacked by Termites.
2. Most of you are ignorant fools who don't know most homes are not attacked by Termites.
3. We know better than to sell Termite Insurance in areas where Termites have been known to infest.
4. Most of you do not drive your cars into a wall because you have Comprehensive Collision and Liability Coverage.
5. Most of you (Yours Truly not included at the moment) are not considering committing suicide because you have Life Insurance (again Yours Truly excluded as of this moment, if that means anything to anyone).
6. Given your predilection toward not destroying your insured Car and insured Life, we expect all of you with IQs greater than 20 will take preventive measures against a Termite attack on your house. 99% of those with IQ less than 20 will ask others to do it for them.
So next time please be careful what you say. Don't judge us unfairly if we don't know a little thing or two such as how to prevent Termite manifestations. Okay?"
If you pay a service provider to take care of something and that person does not do the job properly, or causes any kind of damage to your person or property, then the service provider is liable to provide you compensation. In this situation, it is the service provider who's in need of liability coverage and not you, the service consumer. A good example is a Doctor who has Malpractice Insurance. Whether you have Health Insurance or not before you visit the Doctor is irrelevant.
If you carelessly or deliberately ram your car into another, your Comprehensive Collision Coverage enables you to get your car fixed, while your Liability Coverage attempts to cover any damage incurred by the other party. Providers of these kinds of insurance are regulated - at least to some degree. Or at least one hopes so. We expect some kind of accountability from either party and we don't need to get into whether this accountability spans things moral and/or legal. A much more interesting question to ask is, how do we reconcile this accountability for an insurance (sic) such as Termite Insurance?
Termite Insurance providers have no real liability. In the worst case, their liability is capped to the extent of damage caused to the house by termites. The moment you see damage, you are going to call them, right? You are not going to wait till your entire wall collapses. The damage to their pocket is hence limited to the cost of repairs. You cannot sue your Termite Insurance company. They never promised your house will not be attacked by Termites. If Termites caused a hole in your wall, they will pay (I hope) to repair the hole in the wall. If it's winter and snowing outside and some member of your family gets frostbite, that's your problem not theirs. If someone you invited to dinner gets frostbite then you may be in the market for "Ungrateful Neighbor Insurance" in case you think you might get sued.
So do you think you need Termite Insurance? I don't know. You decide. Meanwhile, why don't we examine something a little more palatable? How about Flood Insurance?
It has been raining incessantly and abnormally where I live the last few days. The county I live in hasn't seen any flood in the 15 years that I have lived there. However, earlier this week on my drives to work, I couldn't but help hearing commercials for Flood Insurance during news breaks on the radio. Coincidence? Or someone trying to pray on people's fear of a Flash Flood because of the rains? That wasn't a stretch; warnings for surrounding counties had been popping up regularly during local evening news shows on TV. It is a business after all, so we might very well excuse them for their opportunistic peddling.
However, after 3 days, I started getting increasingly irritated by the commercials. And I have to admit, the source of my displeasure could simply have been the talk show host himself endorsing this insurance provider. My irritation gradually turned into curiosity. I decided to find out who was trying to sell Flood Insurance to folks such as myself. I wanted to make a mental note never to do business with them. Much to my chagrin, I discovered I had misheard the commercial. The bozo on radio was not selling Flood Insurance. He was raving about Food Insurance.
Did you get that? I didn't make a typo. F****** FOOD INSURANCE!
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true. Fear is the basest of all emotions.and
ReplyDeletefear of death is the basic of all.
and GOD is the insurance for that fear..and the priests..pimping god.