Ignorance is bliss?
The year was 2007, the purpose was tax relief and the instrument was a medical insurance policy my father would get a commission on. I was 28 but was advised to write the incorrect weight on the form because otherwise my BMI would be too high for the form to be accepted. And that my friends was the seed of doubt and fear that was sowed in a mind that believed fat was a terrible thing to be and did not think to question the system. At the time, I had never had to apply for or thought of applying for medical insurance because I was always covered by the policy of the organisation I was working in.
Come 2019 and I was out on my butt with no such privilege. Having been diagnosed as pre-diabetic that year, health was very much on my mind. I had already adopted the OMAD lifestyle, and I was feeling better in my body, but my mind was a war zone of stress and anxiety. And I was burning a major hole in my savings!
The same thoughts went round and round my head. What do I want to do? Should I go looking for jobs? Should I trust and continue looking for freelance and coaching opportunities? And the big one, what do I do about medical insurance?
And so I did what was most convenient to me. I picked up the phone and spoke to someone I had spoken to several times before about insurance, who had helped with quotations etc. when I needed to compare things for the organisations I had worked for. He said he could help, sent me a form to fill out, and discussed a premium. And then I didn’t hear from him. A few weeks later, when I called, he told me he had been trying but my BMI was so high that I had been rejected in the two places he had sent my form to and he proceeded to mention two established brands. When I asked him where else we could try he answered with a very tired, non-committal response. I asked him if I should check online and once more I got a very tired, shruggy response about how my weight will be a problem. And he ended by asking me not to get upset but maybe it was time I looked seriously at my weight problem.
The conversation left me breathless, crushed and feeling supremely humiliated. It paralysed me and I decided to drop the subject for a bit. Unfortunately though, my mind wouldn’t drop it. Every time I woke up feeling even a little uncomfortable I would get a knot in my stomach about how I did not have medical insurance and what would happen if something were to go wrong. Fear is a terrible thing; not only does it feel awful, it also paralyses one to all logical deduction. Now that I look back I think — I could have researched online, so what if he said what he did? Do I not know better, do I not know that Google has all the answers? Unfortunately, none of this occurred to me then.
At the beginning of 2020 I finally mustered up the courage to speak with a few of my friends, one of whom put me in touch with another agent, who he said was amazing and could get insurance for anyone! Wanting to be upfront and definitely wanting to avoid being shamed for my BMI again, I informed the agent about my BMI and that I knew it may need tests or an extra premium and I was OK with that. He seemed supportive and told me he would get back to me with options. A week later, the nightmare repeated itself. “It’s very difficult ma’am; also why don’t you think of reducing, it will be good for your health.” And a non-committal response when I said that’s all fine but can we do something in the interim. And after that, silence…
By then the lockdown was in force and even though my anxiety levels sky-rocketed every time I thought of the need for medical insurance, I procrastinated about doing anything. Ameya sent me some advice on how I should look at government policies. I got numbers of other agents from another friend. But the shame and the fear and wanting to avoid this trigger kept me paralysed.
Thanks to the podcast however, I continued talking about it, I continued raging about it and I continued wanting to find a way to get the insurance. This led me to a conversation with a friend who has been key to the development of sites like policy bazaar. He told me I was being an utter fool for believing the agents. He urged me to go online and went so far as to say I would probably have insurance in 30 minutes if I followed his advice. It sounded too good to be true, but I decided to attempt this once more.
Full marks to me for resilience, I would say.
The good news — it happened as he said. I literally bought a policy with the features I wanted in 30 minutes flat and within my budget. And, therefore, dear ones who have read this far, 27 days from now the policy will be live and I will have more medical insurance than I need (fingers crossed), and definitely less anxiety on the subject.
And yet, I am afraid. Can they reject my claim based on my BMI. What if the agents were correct and, even though this policy has me covered on paper, it will still be ineffective in real life?
And so my demons continue to plague me in this fat phobic society. Despite the research now available, the formula a statistician used for population sizes many decades ago can determine my eligibility for medical support.
Please join me in a prayer that I never need to find out whether this policy will hold or not. Frankly, in a world this unfair, that I am as yet tentative about being able to change, I would prefer to be ignorant and blissful.
