Insurance

Insurance = fear circle. Fear leads to seeking various insurance offers, but once you dig deeper to get what you might need, the whole insurance selection process creates more fear.

We addressed the following “fears”.

1 – Home

2 – Car

3 – Travel

4 – Health

5 – Life

1 – Home insurance – we had to get different home insurance since we are not living in our house. It is rented out as a combination of a long-term rental and Airbnb. I had to go through a broker to get commercial insurance that would cover both long-term and short-term rentals. It took me 2 months to work through all the details of this insurance, and then that fell through the last week before we left. I was lucky to piece it together again in the last few days. Is it sufficient for catastrophic situations? I wouldn’t bet my life on it. It’s double the price of our regular home insurance, and it doesn’t cover earthquakes like our previous policy did. Our new insurance also required our renters to have their own renters’ insurance. It doesn’t cover our personal property since it’s a commercial policy. Every time I dug deeper into our insurance options, I became a bit more overcome by fear. Then I would think we needed to add additional coverage, and the circle of fear continued. Supposedly, we are now sufficiently covered, but honestly, who knows?

2 – Car insurance – we did not keep our cars sitting around for the next 18 months. That means we won’t have car insurance at home during our travels. This affects our car rental coverage in different countries that might not have sufficient coverage for their vehicles, and then the responsibility falls on us. Credit cards offer additional collision coverage, but it might not be enough in some geographies. The devil is in the details. Also, since we won’t have continuous insurance coverage, we can expect that our car insurance will be significantly higher for the first year when we return. I’m reminded of a scene from “Lethal Weapon” when Joe Pesci goes off on a tirade about cell phone companies. That’s my take on the insurance companies.

3 – Travel insurance – you get some through credit cards, but should buy additional coverage, which usually comes with health insurance for digital nomads.

4 – Health insurance – since our home country is the US, we are pretty much screwed. There is an additional issue with us being from the state of Washington. Accident insurance isn’t a big deal; we can get it relatively cheap ($400-$600/month). We can also cover most minor mishaps by self-funding them, paying cash (e.g., a broken arm costs a few hundred dollars, major surgery costs a few thousand dollars, etc.). However, God forbid, any of us needs more care, anyone gets some serious diagnoses (cancer, etc.), we would be pretty screwed. We would have to return immediately, have one of us secure a job with health insurance coverage, and then deal with whatever comes our way. We were both in agreement that this fear of “what-ifs” should not stand in the way of this adventure. We’ll see how it turns out – hopefully, it will be just fine. We’ll be paying for health insurance for digital nomads, but I’m not holding my breath that it will make a significant difference.

5 – Life Insurance – ours covers us even when outside of the country for an extended time, just need to keep paying it. Not all life insurance policies are valid if you are outside the US borders for more than a specified period or if you engage in particular (usually travel-related) activities.

Any sort of insurance plays on our fears. We would never leave the house if we gave too much thought to every potential bad thing that could happen. We need to have all these types of insurance (and we do), but we have both agreed that bad things can happen anytime, anywhere. In the meantime, we have to live in the moment and hope for the best.