Insurance Policies - (2/2)

We select our insurance company based on both the premium, and the probability of getting paid. The last thing we want is a dodgy underwriter, so we usually do our homework (or pay a broker to do that for us). No insurance company is credible that doesn’t have a written contract, doesn’t explain the contract up-front, doesn’t guarantee its payout process and has no track record.

Insurance is all about risk management - making sure that we’re covered in the event of adversity. Investing our life’s labours into something like a house or other asset without insurance risks the possibility of total loss.

No one in their right mind would do this. Sure, you could get away with it if you are lucky, I mean not everybody gets robbed, has a fire or loses their biggest asset, but it’s high-risk living.

Our asset planning advisors structure our finances in a way that balances risk with reward, with insurance a strong part of the equation, but there’s another risk/reward equation that I see people screw-up all the time.

The big one - life after death. Ouch! Please don’t expect a lecture from me on this one because my experiences are so far limited to planet earth (and even then only that part between Australia, Fiji, Norfolk Island, USA and Godzone).

But I’ve really studied the various religions and teachings of the world trying to work this one out, and despite everybody’s claims to know the answer, basically nobody knows for sure, because nobody has really been there.

A good friend of mine Gary, recounted two totally conflicting stories about this life-after-death issue. When he was a child, he drowned and had a “white light” experience as he lost consciousness. A deep peace came over him at the time and from then on He knew that “something was out there”. His father resuscitated him on the beach by the way. He spent the next 30 years trying to come to terms with it all, knowing that there was life after death but not being able to finger it until he became a Christian some years later and it fell into place for him.

The other story really shook him up as he recounted it. Apparently his motor-biking mate gored himself on the West Coast sand dunes in an accident and was the first customer of the Westpac rescue helicopter service. On the flight to hospital he died a few times and was then brought back. His story was that “There’s nothing out there mate, just blackness”, and while Gary led a good life after his experience, his mate lived it up recklessly because “tomorrow I may die, and that’s the end!”

Religions are a little mixed in their approaches to the question - including:

• Sorry, time’s up. Come back again. Reincarnate . . . . now. Please try harder next time!
• Standby please. Your suicide bomb has got you past “GO”. You will be in paradise with half a million virgins very shortly. Now, see if you can ruin your new paradise too!
• Heaven? What are you talking about? You mean we are not in heaven already? . . . Ummm Ommm.
• Well of course there’s a heaven. Rule 11, Clause 666, subsection 13 says that you can get there if you do what I say [pay me your money, jump 33 times on your tiptoes facing due North-East, dance in a circle and think only very good thoughts, on the Ides of March but then only when it is a full moon]
• And of course the one that naturally grates with us all - the Jesus story, “Humble yourself, do the right thing and believe in Me”

The thing that really amazes me is how simple the thing really is to work out but how enormously hard this seems to be. I reckon that life is simple, but that sure doesn’t make it easy.

The bible explains the core difficulty we have, in that we’ve all been blinded, and its not until the blindfold is removed that we can get the picture. Paul says:

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:4

(The “god of this age” is of course the devil, and it’s his mission in life to conceal, deceive and generally make life a hell on earth for us)

The point about insurance is this. If Jesus says that He is the only way to heaven and all the others don’t, then the balance of probability stacks up in His favour. If there is a God; if Jesus is the Son of God; if what He says is the truth and there is life after death, but we can only get to heaven through Him, then this all looks like the best underwriter to me. If He is correct, then the others are in deep shit doo-doo. That’s too high a risk for me.

Sure, faith is more than just life insurance, but it is still one factor in the life-after-death issue. The VICTUS IN AMBITUS way is to assess all options, then insure with the best underwriter available.