“THE FIRST WEALTH IS HEALTH”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The key to a strong financial life is a person’s good health. The logic is simple: only when your health is intact would you be able to focus on other important things in your life otherwise all the hard work done towards building that financial corpus would go into paying various medical expenditures!

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It’s strange that a majority of us are very cautious and particular about protecting our material commodities such as securing insurance for our cars or our homes but when it comes to securing our lives, we somehow overlook it or procrastinate it. At a time when diseases, disabilities, accidents are becoming more common and the field of medical sciences improving rapidly, it’s but obvious that such development would result in increase in the average living age of a person globally. This in turn would have a direct impact on one’s future finances.

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“Therefore, in future the related medical cost of caretakers, medical equipment, medicines etc would increase as people would tend to live longer which makes it inevitable for each and every one of us to have a strong financial base to rely upon.”

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As an individual you are responsible for yourself, for your family and for those whose lives will be impacted by decisions that you take, eg: your employees.
A chronic disease or a disability can affect you anytime without any warning. If you are a businessman or a professional or even a key employee in your organization, then such an occurring can stall your current inflow of income while also affecting your future financial growth.
Let’s take the below case study:

Mr. Ashwin is a professional whose job requires him to travel frequently to various countries. In one such travel, he realised that there was a severe pain. Upon visiting the hospital, he was diagnosed with cancer. Owing to this he is constantly hospitalised for weeks and sometimes even months for his treatment. As he is the sole breadwinner of his family, his finances and the lifestyle of his family has been deeply affected because of increase in the medical treatment expenditure.

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In the above case study, it’s clear that his finances of the present and future to an extent are affected as he’s unable at the moment to involve into planning his future business or family activities. Moreover he also isn’t in a right state of mind to take important, sensitive decisions, decisions that require his direct involvement and that which can’t be delegated.

“Therefore it’s only smart to take into consideration such situations before they occur itself and draft a plan and act accordingly when you are in the right state of mind so that it wouldn’t impact your overall finances gravely.”

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Action steps that you can take to counter the financial impact a health risk carries:

• Start writing your future plans and start sharing about it along with the action steps that are to be taken in order to achieve them with your family, employees and any person who’s involved in your journey.
• Have an accountable partner in your family and in your workspace; who can take charge upon your absence and who knows precisely the responsibilities of each person, the areas to focus upon and the goals to achieve.
• Share your absolute cash flow sheet with your closed ones so that they face no issues in managing the cash inflows and outflows.
• Secure yourself for example: by getting a medical insurance, or a permanent disability insurance etc which can take care of the losses of your time on account of such diseases.
• Continuously practise delegating your work so that right systems and processes are set in place and those surrounding you are empowered to contribute their best in your absence too.

Life is simple. Don’t complicate by not planning and readying yourself. Take steps to counter health risk as early as possible so that you and your family members can enjoy the same lifestyle while fulfilling your needs and desires without much stress on your finances.

BECOME AWARE. PROTECT YOURSELF.

(P.C: Google Images)