Never Risk Your Risk

Many people in India think that paying Insurance Premium is a waste of money. So much so that some even stop paying premiums for compulsory insurance – Motor Insurance. Lesson needs to be learned from cases that happen not just in our nation but worldwide.

The following is a true incident that happened in China in May, 2011. The moral from it is self explanatory. Wu Yuanbi, a 53-year-old migrant worker living in Chongqing municipality, had declined for years to buy medical insurance because she wanted to save money. Result - Rather than pay medical bills, she cut into her own belly with a kitchen knife to perform self surgery.

Wu, who moved with her family to Chongqing in 1989 in search of better-paying jobs, has been suffering for about 13 years from Budd-Chiari syndrome, a chronic condition that caused her stomach to fill with fluid. In 2002, she and her family pooled their savings to pay for a procedure that resulted in the removal of 25 kilograms of water from her midsection. But a relapse of the condition followed and the family found itself too poor to pay 50,000 yuan ($7,686) for a second operation.

It was once common for poor rural families to go bankrupt after they had paid high medical costs. But not anymore. With the introduction of health insurance policies, some being highly subsidized by the government, basic healthcare has become more accessible to rural people.

Most of us can hardly afford to bear the full cost of medical treatment. Whereas the premiums charged by most policies are very reasonable. Hope lessons are learned!!