Optimism is Great, but Just in Case – Be Insured

I like to try to think positively about things. While financial concerns – or the fear of financial concerns – can motivate me (as I’ll discuss in an upcoming post), I’m a fan of positive thinking.  Orient your mind toward positive thoughts and expectations, and you’ll be moving a little bit more in the direction of those things happening.

That being said, we never know what can happen.  We can’t control everything, despite our best intentions and positive outlooks.  Sometimes, things do happen.  A recent story in the sports world, which ended up being a genuine human interest story, can serve as an reminder for the need to get a life insurance quote.

A race car driver, and former Indy 500 champ, died recently in a race at another track.  Naturally, that’s sad. What makes it even more sad is that the guy left behind a wife and 2 younger kids. He was in his 30’s, right in the middle of some great years of life.  All of a sudden, in a car accident on the track, tragedy happened.

What happens if a tragedy impacts the average parent out there, man or woman, who’s being counted on to support the family?  What if the other parent was not actively working, yet all of a sudden loses a spouse? While there are bigger things to think about, the reality is that money can soon become a big problem if much less cash flow is coming into the house.

I took out a life insurance policy a few years back for this reason. Actually, I might need to increase the amount of coverage, the more I think about it.  Blogging about personal finance, and researching things further, I’ve come to the conclusion that many of us underestimate the potential financial impact of such events. Especially when young, many people think that they can skate by without making a modest payment, thinking that they can save money. While I normally like the idea of cutting out smaller amounts of money like $40 dollars a month as an example, since those amounts can add up to big dollars over time, the downside to cutting the costs can be extremely painful in the worst case.

When in my mid-20’s, I was friends with a guy in grad school who told me that he was uninsured. By this, I mean he had no health insurance. In fact, when employed before going back to grad school, he didn’t have any insurance for a while. This despite knowing at some level that the downside could be high. What’s crazier is that we were getting our MBAs, so you would think that the business mind would take over! Well, he thought he would take the risk and avoid spending the money. Great guy actually and really funny, but I’m sure it didn’t stop him from spending money going out with friends.  Good guy to go get a beer with, I’ll give him that. But he simply got lucky with risky insurance choices – or non-choice.

Well,  I’d rather not leave things to luck. There are other risks that can be taken, with far more upside and fun too – with less downside. It’s important to remember insurance.  This holds true in many other areas of our lives as well. For example, if you’re driving regularly, you never know when an accident might happen. Nobody’s perfect. Buying motor insurance is a way to protect against those risks. Thankfully, we have to have such insurance. It’s good make smart choices along those lines, and pick a plan that works best for your own situation.

Peace of mind is important, especially when it comes to major financial issues. We might as well protect against big risks, and live without that particular worry in the back of our mind.  Then we can focus on the optimism I discussed earlier!