Insurance Policies - (1/2)

Risk management is thinking through the question ahead of time, “What would happen if . . .?”

Coming from the computer business, for years I’ve recommend clients consider the three biggies with data security:

• Computer failure
• Fire and
• Theft

They’d ask, “How often should I back up?” The answer was always, “As often as you cannot afford to lose the data”.

Nobody does proper computer backups - until they lose some critical data that is! In the 20 years or so of computers, I’ve had some close calls.

Once I was one keystroke away, literally from permanently obliterating a client’s live data with no backups when my finger paused, and I thought for a second time about the command I was about to send into the bowels of the beast, when I came to my senses! That was VERY close to a disaster and I had a big sweat for a few minutes.

I used to joke with nervous clients when I delivered them their first computer. Sitting down to the keyboard, I would type a few commands to kick it into life, and then say, “Oh, no!” or “Darn . . .!” More often than not they would get anxious and enquire, “What? What’s wrong?”, to which I would reply, “It’s the keyboard that’s faulty - It’s pressing all the wrong keys”. Nervous laughter of relief would mean that they had “got it”.

Sometimes they would sit there nervously when it was their turn and I would encourage them. “Don’t worry, you can’t do any damage. If smoke comes out of the back of your computer, then you will have hit the wrong key!” I stopped this particular quip after Brian at PC Exchange showed me a 486 computer that did actually blow up - literally. The minitower was a total write-off, not one single recoverable part because the force of the blast was enough to cover every component in battery acid. We think that the CMOS battery was wired in back to front. I was told that the CDRom that was in the caddy was embedded in the wall on the opposite side of the room! That is one hell of an big explosion!

On some things, usually the larger items, we really just can’t do without insurance. The general idea is that we pay someone bigger than us something that we CAN afford so that in the event of adversity, they will cover us.

When we insure with someone, we have to put a lot of trust that the underwriter will cough up the dough when a claim is made. Insurance companies make a lot out of their long-term business survival. Trust us they say. Even though they try to wriggle out of any claim that they can, usually, they do honour their agreement

The bible too, talks a lot about trusting in someone bigger than ourselves. Someone who can and will cough up the dough when the claim is made. Scripture is repleat with examples and phrases, chapter and verse that assure us that God can be trusted, has the resources, and the desire to honour His deals.

Jesus was in fact so much into trusting the Father that even the mockers in His last moments acknowledged that He trusted in God. It is some testimony when even your enemy sings your praises!

In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
Matthew 27:41-43

And to His disciples, who needed a little encouragement:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”
John 14:1

Such is the business of insurance - trusting that the bigger entity is “good for it”.

When push comes to shove with trusting the ultimate bigger entity (our Creator) it is the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way to oblige.