How Can You Avoid Financial Ruin from Medical Emergencies with Smart Planning?
In the sphere of financial services, when it comes to insurance, it is a push product and the standard objection that one comes across would be that “I don’t need insurance because I am sure that nothing’s going to happen to me in the future. Why should I waste my money on something where I don’t get any returns?” Awesome! May God be with you!
For once, I cannot say the same thing for a 21 year old youngster and his parents, who are good friends of mine, and were somewhat convinced by my persistent follow up to subscribe for a family floater medical insurance policy for an amount of ₹ 25 lacs, even though they strongly believed that a conventional policy of ₹ 2,00,000 was enough because nothing serious was going to happen to them.
Whenever their renewal was due, their conviction grew stronger that their hard-earned money that was being paid as premium was being wasted on something that they didn’t want.
Instead, their intention was to gift the latest model of the iPhone on their son’s upcoming 21st birthday with the money.
1…2…3… years went by and every time I sent a reminder for the premium due, I met with the same sarcastic remarks.
One day, it was in the middle of the night, and the phone on my side table near the bed started buzzing. Since it was the middle of the night, with the phone on the DND mode, I could only feel the vibration of the phone.
I could see my friend’s number flashing on the screen. Answering the phone, my friend on the other side said that his son had been brought to the hospital in an emergency and had to be admitted to the ICU.
While having dinner, his son suddenly started suffering from fits and suddenly fell down unconscious. Though he had been complaining of constant cramps in the hands, the parents kept delaying the decision of going to a doctor, assuming that it was a normal occurence.
The patient had a sudden attack, and he fell down unconscious and had to be shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU).
The diagnosis revealed that his nervous system had slowly started to fail and that the patient had suffered from an attack of Barry’s syndrome or GBS, in short.
Days turned to weeks and at the end of 6 weeks of agony and pain for the family, the son regained consciousness from the coma-like situation and could be shifted to the normal ward, though in a paralyzed state.
Weeks turned into months on the hospital bed, and at the end of 6 months, the patient had started responding to the treatment positively and could slowly support himself with a walker.
The total bill at the time of discharge ran into ₹ 25 lacs!
This is the naked reality of the typical Indian family who is more than willing to splurge on the latest model of the iPhone rather than invest on his or his family’s health.
After 6 weeks of agony and pain for the family, their son regained consciousness from the coma-like situation and could be shifted to the normal ward, though in a paralyzed state.
Over time, with the proper treatment procedures through physiotherapy sessions, responding to the treatment positively the patient could slowly support himself with a walker, graduating to a walking stick.Though full recovery would take another 6-8 months, the agony for the time being was over, both in terms of the pain and the finances for the treatment, thanks to the medical coverage that the patient had ffrom the insurnce company!