Well, Hurricane Dorian wasn’t a very nice guest, that’s for sure. He took down 80% of the power in Nova Scotia, ripped up trees, crumpled a crane and flung some pretty heavy stuff around. We knew he was coming and he wasn’t going to be pleasant – so we strapped everything down, charged our devices and cleared out the grocery stores of bread, propane and storm chips.
Many of us remember when Juan touched down over a decade ago. We remembered the days without power and the damage we faced the next morning – so we took Dorian seriously and prepared.
Now why don’t we prepare as well to face off against financial storms?
Sure, you can predict a hurricane… you can watch it building and approaching. With a hurricane we get multiple warnings, real-time updates, and visuals of wreckage along the storm’s path. You don’t get a forecast for accidents, illnesses or other personal catastrophes. You don’t get a warning. Financial storms just hit.
Last week I delivered a cheque to a very young, grieving widow whose husband died from cancer way too young. Because they had gone through the process and set up insurance coverage long ago, this young mom and her child will be okay from a money perspective. The financial buffer she has now allows her the space to grieve without worrying where the mortgage payment will come from. She won’t have to rush back to work because she needs to pay bills.
Actually, this was the second cheque I delivered to her. The previous critical illness claim had provided money to help with extra expenses like parking and eating out during treatments, extra childcare on tough days, making their home more comfortable for this awful reality, settling bills and debt that were adding stress they didn’t need, and taking more time off work when it counted.
It occurs to me that we need to prepare just as well for what we DON’T know is coming, as for what we know is coming. Especially with statistics like this: 1 in 2 Canadians (49% of men and 45% of women) is expected to develop cancer during their lifetime – that’s a pretty alarming forecast.
The best time to batten down insurance is now. Review your policies, make sure you work through an honest and extensive gap analysis and get the right protections in place. The chance you’ll need to weather some kind of personal storm is almost inevitable.
Once you’ve cleaned up from Dorian and restocked your storm chips, please take the time to make sure you’re ready for any storms in your financial life.
