It was a fine afternoon and Nannette and I got to talking.

I just passed the insurance examination given by the Insurance Commission and can now be ushered into the world of insurance agents and hustling and bustling. That made me uncomfortable and I told Nannette so.

Okay, I still had the image of the feisty, persistent, pesky seller of insurance who does not really explain or understand what he sells, does not hear the word “no”, does not stick around through the bad times (when the hapless insured can no longer pay the premiums), is just interested because of the commission he hopes to get from me.

I did not want to be that person.

Today, I learned about a different kind of investment and a different kind of bank.

What did the endorsers have to say?

Giselle Sanchez: “It is an investment just like bonds, stocks and savings.”

Anna-Lynn Salindong: “It is just like an insurance policy – a biological insurance policy.”

But I was not really thinking about investing and investments that day. I was going about my own way, staring at the wall of a clinic, when the wall stared back. On it was a message board and on the board was a poster of a cute baby.

It was a poster for cord blood banking.

Cord blood what???

And I was reminded that I kind of knew about it, a colleague in work having “banked” his baby’s cord blood in Singapore two years ago. All I know was that the expense was prohibitive. But I remembered too that my colleague, although sighing and murmuring about all that money he spent for it, thinks that he did good.

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Something bothered me.

I was looking at my financial duties for 2010, staring as far out as December, when the imminence of what I have to pay struck me: huge life insurance premiums.

Do you have the thought that sometimes you may have bitten more than you can chew?

Years ago, when I bought those policies, business was good and was not yet bogged down by recession woes. I felt I could do anything – be anything, buy anything. My financial planner convinced me of the wisdom of obtaining life insurance (my second attempt at it). For peace of mind, she said. And I did have it. I remember thinking while driving one day that my family will be okay if… But now, that same thing that gave me peace of mind is shattering it.

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Postscript: Man’s Inhumanity to Man

A crisis makes heroes and villains of people. While there are many stories of heroism, one cannot ignore horror stories of fastfood chains turning away people who wanted to use restrooms or who wanted to charge their cellphones (one gave an emphatic “no”, another charged a USD$3 fee), or those who pillage the houses of those hardest hit, or those who charged USD$500 at the height of the storm for the use of a rubberboat before a family can be brought to safety, or those selling (selling!) relief goods to those who cannot take another blow.

Please choose to be an angel during these times. And if you have employees, likewise instruct them to open your doors. The next life you save may that of someone you know, or yours.

But a bank is a facility and should be treated as such, a temporary parking space for money, and then the money should be put somewhere else so it can make more money to those who are entitled to it – you and me – who worked hard for it. If the money is left to rot in almost interest-free savings accounts, inflation (general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money) would work it’s magic and the money is no more.

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I had my first life insurance policy when I was 21.  I did not think I needed it, death was furthest from my mind at that time. But everyone was getting one (at the office, at least) and so I did too.  The bi-monthly deductions hurt (though it did not even reach the one million [...]

Not all insurance are created equal. While appearing equal, most appear to be bloody sharks, feeding on the murkiness of our ignorance. And sometimes, this is what they actually are, devouring the unsuspecting. But an enigma too, because their “numbers” could, at once, become flexible as if by magic. If you ask nicely. Okay, forget nicely. If you ask. There is something about knocking that opens doors.

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