Where Religion stands on Insurance

Oh, how the world has changed since my last blog. President Goodluck threw verbal stones in Ibadan and shortly after PDP rallies became unapproachable unless one is tired of living. Mubarak’s stepped down in Egypt and Libya’s on the brink of civil war because Ghaddafi refused to budge. Julian Assange’s weird ‘gift’ to the world in the form of 4 love children in Australia has been leaked, the hunter becoming the hunted.

Esparanza Spalding (I still don’t know who that is anyways and I don’t care!) won the best New Artiste at the Grammys at the expense of artistes far more popular the world over, Drake and Justin Bieber! (I never knew the academy hated Drake and Justin Bieber  that much.) The Roman bought Fernando Torres from Liverpool FC for 50m pounds without the operations’ manual and had the cheek to throw Torres into the fray against the same Liverpool less than a week later at the bridge…needless to say that's an absolute disaster.  Chelsea FC’s resurgence in the League and the F.A Cup is in the hands of the Almighty and ‘the Blues are not smiling’.

One thing remained unchanged though, Arsenal FC’s inconsistency! Beating the best club in the world right now in FC Barcelona in a breath-taking match in the Champions’ League, only to give a replay to League One side, Leyton Orient! Only Arsenal FC can seem to manage that feat. Up Gunners! They’re so contradictory!

Speaking of contradictions, this reminds me of Lagosians, their religious beliefs and what they think of insurance. Funny how Lagosians try to use religion to make insurance look irrelevant.  Every young man and woman marketing insurance out there has encountered this particular objection more times than they can count.  When prospecting Christians in Lagos (and I want to believe this applies to the majority of Nigerians) the commonest objection is the infamous, “The Lord is my insurance.” While it is undeniable that the life we live belongs to our creator, it is equally undeniable that we are responsible for our choices and making our lives count for something! God owns us and we own our choices.

Guess what I came across over the weekend on this important yet controversial issue. While going through the daily spiritual devotional written by the renowned General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) on Saturday 19^th February 2011, the man of God talked about security measures. Even he, the G.O was surprised some people think it is a sin to take a few steps in securing themselves. Just because the Lord is our fortress, the true guard of our lives and watcher over us, many Christians in Lagos and Nigeria at large, have taken the issue of religion to the extreme. 

Do we for a second think God would do for us what we should do for ourselves? Why don’t we stop working at all and sit at home believing in God’s abundance? Why do we believe faith without works is dead as in James 2:20? Why do we quote the bible out of context or only where it suits or favours our argument or situation? While it is wrong to put our faith in the works of our hands alone, it is equally unwise to let our vision get clouded by religion or our beliefs.

I am not in any way taking anybody on in this blog because I’m a Christian myself; I just think we should be objective about things. While I can speak on the issue on Christianity, the aversion to insurance isn’t a Christian issue only. In the course of doing my job, I discovered that Muslims have their version too and ironically it follows the same line of thought as the Christians. Lagosians, let’s not fool ourselves, faith and beliefs have their place in our lives, but being extreme about it won’t help our cause. 

Where does religion stand on insurance? Religion or faith does not tell us not to protect ourselves or the ones we love from physical, emotional and financial harm. Religion and faith doesn't teach nor preach magic, it places us on the path of responsibility. Abraham didn't get God's blessing by believing alone, he played his part by accepting to sacrifice Isaac! We are responsible for our loved ones, their upkeep, education and preventing them from coming to physical harm. Just because we are under the anointing and the canopy of grace doesn't mean we could stand in the expressway and no vehicle would harm us!

Would faith cook, dish the food and put it in our stomachs or do we just get up and play our part? We should stop abusing our faiths and religious values, it is just ludicrous.

Security as a chief benefit in insurance policies is meant to build some financial estate for the future. As Nigerians and to a great extent Africans, families believe the estate of a man belongs to his entire family, nuclear and extended alike. Everything a man worked for on one day would become the exclusive preserve and property of his entire clan, not just his children’s. Do not tell me that you’ve not heard stories of women and children thrown out into the streets because some people are exercising the traditional beliefs of their clan or community. Let’s not even go into that, for even in my own personal experience, it evokes sad memories and emotions.

Securing one’s future family and children is not against the word of God, setting something aside is not going against the laws of our creator. It is just sad when learned people say things like, “The Lord is my insurance,” only to leave all their hard-earned estate in the hands of unpredictable and unreliable human beings. An insurance policy would bestow upon the beneficiary something to hold on to in case the family or the clan flipped the scripts on us. This is Africa and we are traditional in some areas of life that is our culture! That is a cold fact of life! We can, however, spare our future such pain by taking steps to lay something aside for those dear to our hearts. Now is the time to get our facts right and set in motion a financial plan that will give us peace of mind as the years begin to catch up on us. 

Plant the seed of that great oak tree today. Get financial advice today from the nearest and reliable financial firms in the business of financial security and protection. My name is Olumide Ogungbemi, my numbers 07033588160 and 07056989820, and I’m an insurance marketer with Standard Alliance Life Assurance. 

For the youth, the time is now...

One indisputable fact of life is the importance of money. We all say, “Money cannot buy happiness.”  But how many of us want to be happy and in penury? Any volunteers? I don’t think so. No one can be in penury and be happy anyway. Who are you trying to fool then when you say money is not all that important? I thank God for my generation that the importance of money is not lost on us. While making heaven is the ultimate goal to most of us, living comfortably here on earth is not an option for us, it’s a must.

This brings me to youths’ attitude towards saving money. I have a bone to pick with the youth owing to their responses to the savings question. When asked about savings many a youth would say, “There’s time on my side.” “I’ll start when I get married.” “There’s no rush, I’ll begin when I start having children.” Yada, yada, yada…All these answers are quite tenable in the face of our national economic realities, the harshness of it seems to be biting deeper every day. With a lot of things to do with money and our best days ahead of us, young people can think there’s time to play with. That assumption may be true but while you can play with time, you cannot play with money, not even if you have tons of it. If in doubt, google ‘Iron Mike Tyson’, the most ferocious fighter of his time. He’s so broke now; he’d fight a lizard for coins these days.

‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, one-time owner of a lavish mansion and many state of the art vehicles of the late 1980s, youngest heavyweight boxing champion of the world at 21, he had everything. Money, houses, parties, girls...Oh! lots of girls, and everything…the only problem was he didn’t see money stop coming his way. Financial planning or advice never mattered to him, he was young, successful and owned the hottest pair of fists in the world of boxing, nothing could go wrong and the party could never ever end. Well it did. Inexplicably the party ended and it ended because the money ended. The money ceased coming. Court cases, drugs, bad company, more fights outside the ring than inside of it, name it…The allure of success and never seeing things changing was Tyson’s undoing. Refusal to see change coming was Tyson’s hubris. Refusal to save for rainy days...

This hubris, unfortunately, is not the exclusive preserve of Tyson only but of every successful young man and woman. He’s in good company when one starts compiling the list of ‘the young, the restless and the bankrupt’. Many NBA stars, Scotty Pippen of the famous Chicago bulls of the 1990’s, unbelievably was one of them, NFL stars, rock stars, rappers, singers, amongst which was Toni Braxton. Toni Braxton, who would have imagined that 5 foot 2 beauty, would be having money issues after those commercially successful albums. Well, she is.  

What about back home in Lagos, Nigeria? A visit to Ojez, the popular celebrity haunt and hangout at the National Stadium would expose you to the stars of yester-years, but sadly, not all of them reflect style and grace. What they reflect, what they project, what you see about some of them is far from okay. Many of them are not good-looking anymore, and why is that? Simply because they are broke! While many have stories of investment schemes gone wrong, others simply frittered their wealth away, thinking they would never go out of circulation. How wrong they were and how unkind life can get! These erstwhile stars are barely living off their past earned fame. They are not in demand anymore and so…poof! Their money making days are gone, right before their eyes.

The undeniable fact of life is everyone has his time. At a point, you’re the sun, the center of the stage, the one hugging the spotlight, the one whom is being spoken off. A time would come when the curtains would drop not to be raised again, the final applause, the final ovation, and there would be no encore. The next time you’re seen, you’re an antiquity; there to be acclaimed, appraised, appreciated or even praised but you’re not the center of attraction anymore, or even worse…you may be banished to oblivion.  When the curtains don’t open for you anymore, the stage belongs to another youngster, it isn’t yours anymore. And that’s when it dawns on you that your shine time is up.  And at that time where do you turn but to what you’ve left, what do you fall back on but your savings and investments?

That’s just life for you, young folks. Our time is now. The stage belongs to us now; let’s make the most of it while we can before another star is born. Let’s think like the ancient Egyptians a little. Back in their time, when a Pharaoh is crowned, he starts building his tomb almost immediately. They believe in an after-life, the transition from the living to the dead, that even while dead, Pharaohs must still live like royalty. Based on such beliefs, they start stashing the Pharaoh’s mausoleum, the Pyramids, with treasure for his passage into the after-life. They prepare for his transition to comfort and riches even in the after-life! King Tutankhamen , one of the richest of that era died after a mere 6-year reign at the ripe age of 18! Imagine what he would have made of his life had ‘bad belle’ allowed him be!

The time is now, young folks…At Standard Alliance Life Assurance, we have policies tailored to meet financial needs of the immediate future and far more. The train is one the roll again, ladies and gentlemen, hurry up and don’t get left behind. Don’t spend your future regretting what might have been had you done the right thing 15-25 years ago. The time is now…