Social Insurance

A few weeks ago, an insurance salesgirl came to visit me in the office. It was actually not I expected. Initially, someone from the company contacted me and asked my 30-minutes time to be interviewed. She told me that they were doing a market survey. I was reluctant to accept the request at the beginning, considering a lot of things were due. But after postponing it, I eventually accepted a representative to meet. However, the one who came, did not exactly doing a survey (although she did in the beginning of the interview), she mostly explained to me their new product and tried to convince me to join, and here come my points.

As any insurance sales will do, the representative explained about the risks that we are all facing: if we loose our job, if we suddenly pass-away, or if we have an accident that make us disable to work, etc. In short, they want us to be prepared to face all bad possibilities that we may encounter. And, by preparation means joining the insurance programs. There are a lot of insurance programs offered: wealth insurance, property insurance, health insurance, fire insurance, education insurance, and life insurance.

All these insurance programs are created to make the customers feel secured about their lives and families. However, considering the variety of programs that insurance companies offer, a customer may join more than one program. This means he/she has to pay monthly or annual premiums that most of the time not that cheap. Sometimes, this can cost him/her more than a half of the salary.

After patiently listened to what the representative had to say, I shared my thoughts with her. Some thoughts that suddenly came to my mind, and I effortlessly explained. I didn't know exactly where they came from, but let me share them with you.

So, I explained that I can understand the reasons why the insurance companies exist. I can see the potential benefits that customers, like me, can get. That is why I join some insurance programs. However, I don't want any insurance company to dictate my spending, although they offer reasonable considerations for that.

I believe that insurance alone will not help too much when we experience difficult times in our lives. The insurance companies concern only with the value of money and wealth, and modern people feel that these are very important in their lives. However, remember that every insurance program has terms and conditions that a customer have to carefully read and clearly understand. And the returns of what a customer invests in an insurance program sometimes does not come exactly at time when he/she needs. There is a certain bureaucratic process within the insurance company that we should be aware of. And, money is not everything we need when we experienced difficulties.

So, what do we need then? We all need good neighbors, caring-families, and beloved friends, and this is what I called social insurance. But how do we get that?

Last night, as a friend and I were on our way back home from Makasar, we took a taxi ride. The driver was talkative (but helpful to mentally escape from the traffic jam), and told many stories of his own life. He shared about how he spent his salary as a taxi driver and how to get higher income than his colleagues.

One of the interesting points that he shared was he feels blessed to have a lot of helpful friends when he needs supports. When his father passed-away, the company gave him some money to help his family, but his friends contributed more than what the company gave, and the contributions were not necessarily money.

Why were his friends so keen to help him? That's because he becomes friend to everybody. He chats and shares experiences with new as well as old friends, he asks questions if wants to know new things and answers even naive questions when asked, and he will be among the firsts to contribute when friends are in need. In short, he always maintain good relationship with everybody he knows. He may have some problems with some people, as all will do, but he takes the problems as part of life and think positively about them.

Having good friends, helpful neighbors, and caring families are very important when we are in needs. However, we will not have them unless we are nice, helpful and care with them. That's why the Prophet said: "Treat other people as you will like to be treated".

Good relationship with colleagues, friends and families is a long-term investment that one may not count. Because those who maintain good social relationship are doing so not for the shake of the returns, rather enjoying them as part of daily lives. We will never know when we need the return, but I strongly believe that if we have good social relationships with people we know we will always receive the returns whenever we need.

Remember, if we socially invest good deeds to those who need, don't ever expect them to return to what we have done. if we do that sincerely, we will receive the returns from people that may not expect. This reminds me to a film called "Pay It Forward": If some one helps you, pay it back to someone else who needs your help.

So, in addition to any financial-insurance program that we join, it is very important to join the social insurance program. The real social insurance is not about money that some people effortlessly receive from the government, rather maintaining good relationship with neighbors, friends, and families. Trust me, it costs us less than joining all the insurance programs that any company offers. Moreover, we could enjoy the program as we joining it.

Have a blessed Ramadhan.