Correct me if am wrong, but paying either life or non-life insurance isn’t a concept most, if not some, Filipinos take to. Perhaps, it’s our sense of fatalism, or feeling invincible, or simply not having the budget to pay extra when it’s more urgently needed for school fees and other necessities.

Some only take on insurance because purchase of their house or their car is funded by the company they work for. I had this belief myself, until approaching old age led me to think about the future of my children and other ponderable “what if’s…….” A little savings, even a few million pesos, certainly isn’t enough to assure my school-age children of support in the event of my death. More so now that pre-need companies have shown their inefficiency and have gone bankrupt.

Now it has taken the destruction wrought by Typhoons Ondoy & Pepeng in the Philippines for most people to rethink their stand on buying insurance to protect their life’s most precious assets. How many were actually caught red-handed when calamity struck because they didn’t read the fine print clearly enough? Most people only procured fire insurance for their houses, and not against floods. Those with cars got comprehensive insurance, but didn’t care enough to include the all-important “Acts of God” provision. The “Acts of God” clause protects your assets against accidents, disasters and other occurrences which are not man-made such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis. In short, calamities which are caused by nature.

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