Time Travel

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

-Henry Miller

Traveling is simply a brutality of humanity, it is when we travel that we see things for what they truly are and not how we imagined them to be. Traveling also lets our imagination run wild without expectations, it lets us see things from a new perspective, without the alleged prejudice of the world. And while all of this seems to be an adequate reason to travel, many are still naïve to the idea of traveling.

But just as many are left in the dark to wonder and wander, some are out there exploring and enjoying what the world has to offer them, for it is in that brief moment of youth that we can truly experience life, as we know it.

Now the question of many remains, “Why Should I Travel Young”? Personally, I can give you a hundred, even a thousand reasons why you should travel when you’re young but if you’re desire to see the world begins and ends with your “Wish to See the World” then I’m afraid no amount of reasoning would suffice to convince you to go after what you want.

You see, traveling as much as it is a form of recreation is also a commitment, a vocation for some, but ultimately, it is a responsibility. A responsibility you should be willing to take onto yourself. Many people say that the young are lucky to have the health and the wealth to see the world but what they do not realize is that the young are often distracted, deceived and sometimes, deluded.

So if you’re one of the young’uns who wish to unearth the world’s greatest places and learn life’s most valuable lessons, but are afraid to make it happen, read along, maybe I can convince you to travel while you still have the gift of youth.

Traveling teaches you a sense of adventure- Don’t quote me on this one but based on my experience, traveling allows you to have as much as fun as you want without having to worry of what other people will say about you. You don’t have your peers or parents to warn you and judge you, so you can be young, wild and free. Life is an adventure and traveling lets you experience that.
Traveling teaches you to be compassionate- Other than the photos, the souvenir and the life-long memory that traveling gives you, it also edifies you of the real situation and teaches you to care for other people, sometimes not of your own kind.
Traveling allows you to be culturally diverse- If you think traveling is all about sight-seeing and marveling at the wonders each country has, then you’re right. But there’s also something more important that traveling teaches us, it allows us to be culturally diverse. Whenever we travel, it is important that we follow the local practices of the country/destination we are going to. As the old saying goes, “Respect begets Respect” If we learn to respect and even appreciate the culture of other nationalities then we become more aware of our own. That’s the mutual benefit we get from traveling.
Traveling makes you more attractive as a person- they say that the most attractive people in the world are those that have seen it. Do you agree? I do. It is because of the invaluable and immeasurable life experiences we have with our travels that make us a better person, and when you feel you’re better, you become more attractive.
When you travel young, you travel more- let’s face it, we’re all bound to grow old and lose our health. But while we’re young and at the peak of everything, it’s best to take advantage of it and start traveling, after all, you’re only allowed until your 30s to hike a mountain or ride the rapids of the river.
Traveling makes it easy to make friends- if back at your hometown you tend to cling to the same group of people bound by a circle of friendship, then maybe you should travel more often. Traveling has been proven as one of the best ways to gain friends and build bonds, after all, you are all strangers to one another at one point but because of your common interest to see the world, you are bound by it as well. And get this; wouldn’t it be nice to have friends in all parts of the world? That would be way cool, way cooler than your friends back home.
Traveling makes you a better storyteller- You might not get this now but when you have kids or grandchildren, you will. Those who travel young have more opportunities to experience everything there is to traveling. With the many countries that you’ve visited and you’ll be traveling to is a story waiting to be told. Traveling gives you things to share over breakfast, lunch or dinner. When you travel, you will never have a hard time thinking of a topic to talk about; not to mention you’ll keep everyone with your story.
Now if for some strange reason, after citing all these reasons why you should travel young and you’re still not convinced; it’s pretty obvious that you have a fear inside you that you’re just trying to hide so everyone won’t think you’re a coward who can’t face it. Is it fear of heights? Fear of the unknown? Fear of being independent? Whatever it is, know that traveling, especially alone, will help you address that fear. You just have to take the big leap of faith and make the first step to make your traveling dreams a reality. You only live once; and you’re only young for a short period of time, if you don’t travel now, when?

Many Americans rely on their automobiles to get to work. No automobile means no job, no rent or mortgage money, no food. A single parent, struggling to make ends meet in the suburbs with 100,000 miles on the odometer, would presumably welcome the guaranteed opportunity for low-priced insurance that would take care of every possible repair on her auto until the day that it reaches 200,000 miles or falls apart, whichever comes first. Especially if the insurance is valid regardless of whether she even changes the oil in the interim.

So why aren’t the auto insurance companies writing such coverage, either directly or through used auto dealers? And given the importance of reliable transportation, why isn’t the public demanding such coverage? The answer is that both auto insurers and the public know that such insurance can’t be written for a premium the insured can afford, while still allowing the insurers to stay solvent and make a profit. As a society, we intuitively understand that the costs associated with taking care of every mechanical need of an old automobile, particularly in the absence of regular maintenance, aren’t insurable. Yet we don’t seem to have these same intuitions with respect to health insurance.

If we pull the emotions out of health insurance, which is admittedly hard to do even for this author, and look at health insurance from the economic perspective, there are several insights from auto insurance that can illuminate the design, risk selection, and rating of health insurance.

Auto insurance comes in two forms: the traditional insurance you buy from your agent or direct from an insurance company, and warranties that are purchased from auto manufacturers and dealers. Both are risk transfer and sharing devices and I’ll generically refer to both as insurance. Because auto third-party liability insurance has no equivalent in health insurance, for traditional auto insurance, I’ll examine only collision and comprehensive insurance — insurance covering the vehicle — and not third-party liability insurance.

Bumper to Bumper

The following are some commonly accepted principles from auto insurance:

* Bad maintenance voids certain insurance. If an automobile owner never changes the oil, the auto’s power train warranty is void. In fact, not only does the oil need to be changed, the change needs to be performed by a certified mechanic and documented. Collision insurance doesn’t cover cars purposefully driven over a cliff.

* The best insurance is offered for new models. Bumper-to-bumper warranties are offered only on new cars. As they roll off the assembly line, automobiles have a low and relatively consistent risk profile, satisfying the actuarial test for insurance pricing. Furthermore, auto manufacturers usually wrap at least some coverage into the price of the new auto in order to encourage an ongoing relationship with the owner.

* Limited insurance is offered for old model autos. Increasingly limited insurance is offered for old model autos. The bumper-to-bumper warranty expires, the power train warranty eventually expires, and the amount of collision and comprehensive insurance steadily decreases based on the market value of the auto.

* Certain older autos qualify for additional insurance. Certain older autos can qualify for additional coverage, either in terms of warranties for used autos or increased collision and comprehensive insurance for vintage autos. But such insurance is offered only after a careful inspection of the automobile itself.

* No insurance is offered for normal wear and tear. Wiper blades need replacement, brake pads wear out, and bumpers get dings. These aren’t insurable events. To the extent that a new car dealer will sometimes cover some of these costs, we intuitively understand that we’re “paying for it” in the cost of the automobile and that it’s “not really” insurance.

* Accidents are the only insurable event for the oldest automobiles. Accidents are generally insurable events even for the oldest autos; with few exceptions service work isn’t.

* Insurance doesn’t restore all vehicles to pre-accident condition. Auto insurance is limited. If the damage to the auto at any age exceeds the value of the auto, the insurer then pays only the value of the auto. With the exception of vintage autos, the value assigned to the auto goes down over time. So whereas accidents are insurable at any vehicle age, the amount of the accident insurance is increasingly limited.

* Insurance is priced to the risk. Insurance is priced based on the risk profile of both the automobile and the driver. The auto insurer carefully examines both when setting rates.

* We pay for our own insurance. And with few exceptions, automobile insurance isn’t tax deductible. As a result, the fear of increasing insurance rates due to traffic violations and/or accidents changes our driving behavior and we sometimes select our automobiles based on their insurability.

Each of the above principles is supported by solid actuarial theory. Although most Americans can’t describe the underlying actuarial theories, most everyone understands the above principles of auto insurance at the intuitive level. For sure, as indispensable automobiles are to our lifestyles, there is no loud national movement, accompanied by moral outrage, to change these principles.

Unsustainable Market

In contrast, similar principles are routinely violated in health insurance. To demonstrate this, let’s return to the same suburban mother from the opening paragraph. She’s busy working, driving to and from work, and driving her kids to school and activities. She ends each day exhausted, sitting on the couch with fast food. She’s obese, has a sedentary life, a bad diet, and hasn’t taken the time to go to the doctor in years. After a simple injury doesn’t heal for weeks, she turns up at the emergency room and learns she has type II diabetes. Although type II diabetes is controllable, changing diet and exercise habits and properly tracking her condition takes time and effort and she’s never quite successful in implementing the necessary lifestyle changes.

So the initial emergency room visit is only the first of a long list of health care related to non-controlled diabetes and other problems associated with obesity. Whether she has individual or group insurance, her insurance pays for each episode of care, without singling her out for a premium increase, and without charging her any more cost sharing than is charged to the healthiest and most medically diligent insureds. Her coverage continues until she voluntarily changes insurance companies and/or employers or becomes eligible for Medicare. If she’s covered under group insurance she may not even pay any premium. Her insurance continues unabated, even though the disease was caused by neglecting her body and she maintains her poor lifestyle even after the disease becomes known.

This just wouldn’t happen in auto insurance. This scenario is the auto insurance equivalent of guaranteed access to low-priced auto insurance that takes care of every possible repair, including damage already done, until the day the car falls apart so completely it’s unsalvageable (death) or reaches 200,000 miles (Medicare), regardless of whether she even changes the oil (takes care of herself) in the interim.

As a society, we don’t expect this in private-market auto insurance, but we expect it in private-market health insurance. Furthermore, there’s a chorus of national and state interests, which continuously pushes us further away from the auto insurance principles.

The current private health insurance market isn’t sustainable. Prices have been consistently increasing faster than inflation for decades. Each year, insureds use more health care than ever before and more people have no insurance at all. Most actuaries and other people in the private health insurance market don’t want national health insurance with its bureaucracy and one-size-fits-all benefits. Yet, we’re trying to sustain a private insurance system, which violates the very principles we know are necessary for private insurance markets.

Yes, health insurance involves the sacredness of human life and is therefore different from auto insurance. But if we’re to sustain a private-market solution to health insurance, actuaries need to explain to the larger society, in terms that society understands, the rationale for the following principles:

* As sacred as health care is, it’s still an economic transaction that has to be balanced by individuals and societies, against other economic choices. It can’t be unlimited. Sometimes it will be secondary to other choices. On a given day, for example, the mother in our scenario may value her car more than her health.

* Insurance premiums should be paid by the individual and tied to controllable risk factors. This will provide the best incentive for the control of risk factors.

* Although it’s hard to draw the line between abuse, neglect and ignorance, self-abuse shouldn’t be insured and we need to draw that line somewhere.

* The private market can’t provide unlimited, self-directed health insurance.

* Routine care and ongoing treatments of chronic conditions can be pre-funded, can even be subsidized, but they don’t constitute “insurable events.”

* Insurance can’t be expected to keep every human body in pristine condition. No amount of health care will prevent everyone’s ultimate death.

* Comprehensive, unlimited, non-subsidized private-market coverage isn’t possible for people with severely impaired health.

* The private health market can provide limited non-subsidized health insurance, such as protection from accidents, to even health-impaired individuals.

* Individuals who can afford to do so and who take good care of themselves should be able to “buy up” to better coverage. People have the option of buying up for everything else in life.

Discussion of these principles is lacking from most of the current health insurance debate. If society can intuitively understand how similar principles apply to health insurance, then they should be able understand the principles in the health insurance context. We need to initiate the debate.

Lately, the number of people looking to improve their residences through several home improvement projects have seen a rise. Analyzing this change in trend, several banks and financial institutions have come up with a new financing scheme called home improvement loans. These loans can be availed of upon your outstanding home loan amount to carry out the necessary modifications to your residences.

Here Are Some Of The Major Benefits That A Home Enhancement Loan Can Offer You

Enhance your Property’s Outlook

Haven’t you always wanted to improve the way your house looks? Adding an elegant wooden flooring, some textured painting, and improve the lighting are some of the common home renovation requests. Using a home improvement loan you can do all that and more!

Increase the Market Value of Your Property

The improvement you make in your home increases the value of your property in the real estate market. Also, financial institutions are likely to extend you a home improvement loan for the exact same reason as they consider this a win-win situation.

Say, for instance, you have a house worth Rs.50 lakh in the market. If you choose to improve your home by adding a modular kitchen or an extra guest bedroom among others, the price of the property will certainly rise.

Is Personal Loan for Home Renovation a Good Option?

A personal loan usually comes with high-interest rates; much higher than the rates of traditional home improvement loans offered by a majority of the banks. But there are plenty of benefits associated with a personal loan, for instance, no collateral, easy approval, and higher loan amount. So, evaluate your requirements and choose a loan that best suits you.

How Can One Avail Loan for Home Renovation?

Availing of a home improvement loan is fairly easy if you already have an outstanding loan with a financial institution. New loan seekers, however, will have to go through the application procedure from scratch.

To get a loan sanctioned, you’ll need to submit an estimate on the amount you’d require to complete the renovation. The lenders will evaluate the costs you’ve mentioned, along with the value of your property, and your repayment capacity before sanctioning the loan against your name.