Survive from the medical risks

For very long, I see a general apathy of people towards any awareness of insurance as an area. Everybody knows a few agents and a few life insurance companies and sometimes, a few policies and whaow, they think they know all and are ready to fight on all issues. The most dangerous attitude is a blind eye they turn towards the non-life insurance, the most key and varied areas of insurance.

As one of the non-life fellows(of Insurance Institute of India) among a few hundred s available in the country, I have an idea about the unbelievable level of general ignorance about the non-life sector. A bit of awareness has been created in the last few years thro’ the relentless marketing of the private players, but that’s still a drop in the ocean. The car insurance is the most popular because of the strict regulatory requirement (though I have seen fools like a Godrej manager buying a new car and taking only the regulation 3rd party insurance and his car was stolen after 3 months), and the medical insurance is gaining grounds mostly because of the lesions learnt at every steps of life, there is still a long way to go.

In the evening, I came to know about an acquaintance that he had a medical insurance for the last 5/6 years, failed to pay in this February (thought he was a bit tight, he will do it after a couple of months) and had a bike accident in March and since then was in the hospitals and nursing homes for nearly a month, his hapless parents and relatives arranging the money thro’ selling whatever they had. This is not a stray case either, I know of other highly educated people having this strange apathy towards insurance, as if it is like another mutual fund investment, that I will pay when I will be much surplus. The basic concept of avoiding the crippling or fatal risks by insurance against it is lost by this very idea of putting it on a low-priority thread. This was an obvious failure of his agent too that he did not warn against the possible consequences, though sometimes people just don’t want to take gyans. I continuously see students who always want people to give very good jobs and even better salaries but are very reluctant to bring themselves to a level where they won’t have to ask or beg, they can command. They are also very reluctant to take gyans. I hope it is better for them to be screwed first to learn a few things, it feels like a folly to try to save them from that experience.

I always advise people to give the highest priority to Medical Insurance among all investments and expenses even, for the simple reason that a failure to make payment before the date will simply nullify a policy running for many years even and there is no concept (as in life policies) of revival. You have to make a new policy that will not take care of any condition you have contracted in the intervening years and will take them as pre-existing, means any expense on account of those will be excluded from payment from now on. Also I tell them (but who listens) to increase the amount every year (ask fro 20/25% and they will resist and give hardly 10%). It is the same reason that I ask them to increase the amount that the companies resist in doing so. They (and those stupid half-educated agents – that is 90% of the agents and 90% of them always have their selfish motives in their advices) will try to show that you already have got 5% as bonus for no claims. That must be countered as even if you have a bonus of say 45% for no claims for 9 years, that will simply get wiped out in the year of the first claim and you will be left with the original amount, which adjusted for inflation, will essentially be a small amount, in view of the unholy nexus among the unscrupulous nursing homes and the insurance cos. Also, a floater type of policies in case it is done on a family basis, can go a long way to cover any kind of special situation where an extremely high amount may be required for the operation or treatment.

When I used to work for the big MNCs, I was well covered from their side also, even in world-wide coverage of huge personal accident policies, but still at least 2/3 years before I actually left the industry, just when I first started toying with the idea, I made my own insurance side by side and since then I fight every year to increase the sum by at least 20% and finally accept no less than 10% - this is beside the No claims bonus, mind it.

Many people often call me up for advice in insurance matters and I try to help them upto my small knowledge. Many others, even including many of my close friends, do not, which also I welcome. It may be because they do not think of me of any value or anything else. Giving free advice is a very tiring business and I am happy. But when a misfortune strikes and I have to be at their side and share the grief, I get angry sometimes. If people hold me of no account, they should not ask me at the after-effects of the accidents, that could have avoided at the first place. Often the after-effects are the real accidents, not the events themselves.

Survive from being at the mercy of the interviewer

We all give interviews. Even a KG student gives interview in another school. There is nothing much to know in it and we all know all of it. Or is it ? How many of us know how to give good or top-class interviews? How many of us can rise from the gully cricket to the world cup levels? How many of us do have the confidence that we can crack ANY interview?

Instead of that ANY attitude, people generally depend on the MANY factor. It means one will go on giving interviews with the background music of “We shall overcome some day”. The problem with this thinking is twofold. The dream jobs don’t understand probability and have to be just earned, they are never given (unless you have an illustrious father) – the competition is too much and fierce. Cracking them are like being on the India World cup team and needs tremendous talent – attitude - training at the least with a pinch of luck. For those jobs, one usually go and have a look at some of the competitors – they often look like God and speak like the Satan – and shhhhhhhhh, goes the confidence.

At the other end, the lower category jobs can sometime be given to someone amateurish, but at the mercy of the interviewer and at a much lower salary and benefit level than one deserves. The logic is simple, these companies are not bothered about quality and look for basement bargains and if they think of you as a basement, they will bargain for you at the lowest price possible. But then, the celebration can begin – ohhhhhhhhhhh, I have got a jooob. Means, the one knows all about interviews, till he/she goes on fails the ones which are the really worth fighting for, or killing.

The lower end positions also speak for the perception one leaves and the respect one commands at the interview table and the responsibilities are matching. How does one feel cleaning shit for their company? I have seen a lot of people so unhappy but continue doing just that, even without any future prospects or strategic reasons. Some others, I have seen many again including few of my own ex-students, leaving those jobs (most of them from campus placements) in a few months and cooling their heels for sometime in the family couch in their papa’s hotel.

Forget about the greats, even the really good offers never come to anybody who cannot command respect, who cannot match the wit gun to gun at the interview table, who cannot play the mind-game that is an interview. We constantly give interviews all our lives, not only the formal ones to get a job, also for the job-change every few years (without which one neither rises at a good pace nor can get the value he deserves), for the promotions, for impressing the client, stumping the Boss of the Boss, bowl out the Boss himself at times. Opportunity comes in many faces and the interview basics must be made the second skin of one who really wants to be successful. Each one also has to be customized because based on the customized research you must project the “fit”. Campus interview is often the easiest of the ones because often the companies come mentally prepared to take a small percentage of whatever they get here, and also sometimes they come with under-the-table understandings. They need people and here they come for a bargain of what they know they can expect. In all other situations, in a country of 121 crores, you must show you are pretty different from the others to get a differential treatment, anytime anywhere. Beside differentiation, you need some innovation in handling situations, subtle ways of communication mostly non-verbal, some techniques of selective projection and some clear and palpable value proposition that will take his off stump. But for all these again, one probably need months of practice even after he is provided with all the tools and techniques, the directions and the guidance, the insights and the wisdoms. Everybody needs his own customized document for the strategy and the answers to handle different kind of situations. But memorizing them cannot be the solution, when there can be thousands of questions and it’s varieties. The answer lies in creating strategies for each category of questions that takes care of a genre of situational handling. It is ultimately himself who will go to the ground and play, not the coach or the captain or anyone else. For all this, one need the highest form of knowledge, that is self-knowledge. The final thing needed is professionalism, the urge to be extra-ordinary. The game is not for the amateurs.

To become different, to be in the big league, one needs preparation on a different level that matches the league. It is the numbers that gets one to the door, then it is everything else that sails him through the door. It is like a dynamic stage performance where you simply cannot think of all your dialogs at the stage and get the oscar. Training is only a small but necessary part of it, an outside support that provides the guidance and the direction, the real core still remains to be the dogged and focused pursuit of excellence that makes the differentiation. It sounds like sheer stupidity to think that no training is needed. Nobody knows much before they are taught a bit. Everybody can sing or dance, at the family functions or festivals, then why do some people learn it? Even the Champions do it beside all others. The all time great tennis players like Bjorg, Agassi, Nadal all roamed around with personal trainers. Even the greats among the greats like Tendulkar thanks Gary Kirsten when the evening ends, as if Kirsten can teach many new things to Tendulkar after he rules the game for 22 years. No, it is the direction and objective assessment that he still needs.

One trouble is that trainers often need to be trained. An area which is a mix of science, arts and black magic beside a pinch of strategy and a tablespoon of psychology applications – it is often hard to get a good trainer. Most of them have never been through the process themselves, rarely been through the actual process from either side of the table – and then take the help of the google window, download some presentations among the million (out of which 99% are most ordinary if not bogus) and a swish of the wand – they become soft skill trainers. Good soft look will help, low salary will help even more and the responsibility of the Institute ends there – “what more do you want ? We have even kept a full-time soft skills trainer for you!!”. I will suggest let them train the faculties and not the students, on a “who needs it more” basis. A good trainer on this side needs to understand clearly the view from the other side of the table. The industry point of view not only includes what it says but also what it really wants from the employees – and that needs some clear crystal-like thinking and insight. The lack of original thinking and the understanding of dealing strategy kills the possibility of the real values of these junks. No real outstanding trainer worth his/her salt (and the peeper if you please) will easily take up a job of doing it unless he/she is getting a real fancy package. The market is huge, the need is absolute and it is only the lack of confidence on himself or herself that pushes him /her to do it on a fixed set of people. Those dealing at the industry side are far more capable are averse at teaching others of how to beat them at their own games, they consider it suicidal.

If one does not want to learn, it shows a nice confidence on his capabilities and the eagerness to take responsibilities of his life in his own hands. The only bad thing is that practically that confidence flies out of the window by the time you say Hello at the table and then the moment of truth comes and there is only one option left, the obvious one, submit to the mercy of the interviewer