The Conversation I Wish I Had Pushed Harder
A few weeks ago, I lost my cousin. A heart attack, sudden, no warning. He was not old. He had a wife, a son still studying, a whole life still being built.
I am writing this because I owe him something I cannot give him anymore, and the least I can do is make sure his story helps someone else’s family.
For years, I tried to convince him to take a term insurance plan. Not a big one. Not something that would strain his monthly budget. Just something. A small cover, enough to give his family a floor to stand on if the worst happened. He always had a reason to wait. Next year, when the job stabilises. Next year, when the expenses come down a bit. Next year.
There was no next year.
Today, his son is doing what no young man his age should have to do. He is working a job while still trying to finish his studies. He is counting days between salary and rent, trying to figure out how to survive this month and still put something aside for the next semester’s fees. His mother is trying to hold the household together with far less than she had before, and with far more worry than any parent should carry.
None of this had to happen this way. Not the grief, that was never in anyone’s control. But the financial free fall that followed it, that part was preventable. A term plan costing less than a phone bill every month would have replaced the income my cousin was earning. It would not have brought him back. But it would have meant his son could finish his degree without also working a shift at night. It would have meant his wife could grieve without also panicking about the electricity bill.
I did not push hard enough. I explained the numbers once, maybe twice, and then I let it go because I did not want to sound like I was selling something to my own family. I regret that more than I can put into words. This is not a sales pitch I am writing today. This is an apology, and a request.
If you are the person in your family who earns, who others depend on, please do not treat term insurance as something for later. It is the most boring, unglamorous financial product there is. No returns to boast about, no market performance to track, nothing to show off. Its entire job is to sit quietly in the background and only matter on the one day you are not there to matter yourself. That is exactly why it gets postponed. It never feels urgent, until it is too late for it to feel like anything at all.
A term plan is cheap when you are young and healthy, and it only gets more expensive, or harder to get, as time passes and health changes. The plan my cousin kept postponing would have cost him a few hundred rupees a month. What his family is paying instead, in disrupted studies, in a teenager doing a man’s job before he has had the chance to be a young man, has no fixed number. It is being paid every single day.
I am sharing this publicly because I think there are other people reading this who are doing exactly what my cousin did. Meaning to get around to it. Assuming there is time. There usually is, until the day there is not.
If you have someone who depends on your income, even one person, get a term plan. Not the biggest one you can afford, just one you can start with. It takes less time to set up than the conversation I am having with you right now.
I could not save my cousin. I would like to help save another family from where his is standing today.
If you would like help understanding term insurance and what cover makes sense for your situation, reach out to Lakshya Finserv. This is not about selling a product. It is about not watching another family go through what my cousin’s is going through right now.
