#75 The remedy to overconfidence is a setback

My dad never believed in health insurance. He always said “I haven’t done anything wrong in my life, so I won’t get sick.” (I never understood this concept). I would say he was overconfident because he was in his 60s, he was a smoker and he had diabetes, cholesterol, and high blood pressure. That paints quite a picture, isn’t it?

After a lot of argument, in 2010, my mom and I convinced him to sign up for a health insurance policy for a meagre sum of Rs.50,000.

One day in 2012, I got a call from a random person telling me that my dad met with an accident. It was weird because he doesn’t know how to ride a bike or car. When I went to the spot, which was a kilometre away from home, I came to know that he sat pillion on his friend’s bike and fell down because a rash driver came in the way. Long story short, he broke his knee cap.

And, with no money in the bank, we were worried about what we’re going to do. But, the health insurance came to the rescue. He went through surgery and he fully recovered within six weeks. The bill for the surgery and hospitalisation was Rs.48500. Next year, when we asked about increasing the coverage amount, my dad agreed immediately.

I always tell myself, “We’re one bad decision away from ending up in a disaster.” And many times overconfidence drives us towards some of those bad decisions. But, if we’re lucky, life would give us a setback instead of a full blown disaster. It is an opportunity for us to come to our senses, reassess and straighten out that overconfident attitude. So, if you’ve had some close calls lately, take a moment to think why it happened. If its due to your overconfidence. It’s time to reassess.