The Role of Insurance in Restructuring Your Life Post-COVID

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on the world. The resulting lockdown led to many speculations and studies on the impact of the new lifestyle on people. However, results of these studies have been somewhat mixed. While some studies pointed out that the new lifestyle has resulted in more positive changes than negatives, many also suggested otherwise.

One thing, however, is true in any case, lockdown has given many of us the time to take a break and look back. So, if you are ready to reorganise your life for the better.

Here are Five ideas for you to Consider and How life insurance can be of help:

1. Rethink Priorities – Health & Wealth: What are the two most important things you need to live your life to the fullest? – Health and a bit of wealth. Lockdown gave us the perfect opportunity to start building your schedule to look after both. Even if you are working from home, you can easily connect with a doctor for a quick consultation online.
   You can do the same with the wealth. However, more importantly, you should review where your money is going and whether you can save more. Also, you may want to check the progress of your investments towards your financial goals, and even revise the goals given the new developments.
   If you still have some time left, why not start working on that project you have been thinking of for a long time. Write a book, paint a new theme or just build a new app.
   
2. Work on Mind, Body & Wallet: A large number of people stuck in the lock-down are taking online classes, webinars and certifications, and perhaps rightly so. Lockdown is the perfect time to sharpen your skills for the future and work on your mind.

Also, in the interest of staying healthy, a bout of physical exercise should be a part of your routine at home. Additionally, the added certifications especially in digital technologies can help you get ahead of the competition and gain more value at work and business.

Skills such as digital, YouTube, and social media marketing are helping the entrepreneurs stay viable and functional in this market. Some of these skills may even be essential to keep the inflows on for many business owners.

3. Improve the Contingency Plan: One thing that you need to reconsider among your financial priorities is the contingency plan. In the pre-COVID period contingency planning, you could do with a smaller emergency fund. But, with the speed of changes in the post-COVID environment you need a better contingency plan.
   • COVID-Health Insurance -  One of the most important factors that have come up is whether your health insurance plan will cover COVID-19 treatment costs. If not perhaps it’s time to look for one which does.
   • Larger Emergency Fund -  Many smaller organisations and businesses may not have the financial resources or processes to support your absence from duty due to COVID. In the case of small businesses, the business may suffer a complete shut-down for 15-20 days. Thus, you need a larger contingency fund to weather off such times.

   While earlier you could keep only about three to six months of household expenses as contingency fund, now you will need more. Include, the out of pocket and necessary expenses such as premiums for health and term insurance plans, EMIs, etc. too in your emergency fund pool.

   If you are running a small business, you may also need to spend some money on improving the safety for customers and your staff at your premises.

4. Develop Healthy Lifestyle Habits: COVID-19 has elevated our concern about hygiene in our daily activities to new levels. Along with hygiene, we should also look at the overall food habits and lifestyle choices. Research has indicated that smoking has seen the most severe drop after lockdown. While it’s a great sign, you need to improve the intake of fruits and green veggies among others.
   Most COVID deaths have been reported due to multiple co-morbidities; i.e. other health conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. Thus, low carb diet to manage your blood sugar levels and blood pressure has come out to be the top priority.
   Similarly, you should also include foods like seeds, garlic, black pepper, etc. in your diet to strengthen your immunity. Also, don’t forget about proper and sufficient sleep. 
5. Manage Your Screen Time : With almost everything happening online post-COVID, screen time has seen a significant increase everyone’s life. If you are experiencing the same, and your work involves spending long hours on the screen, you need a plan to manage your screen time.

You can use any app on your computer or phone to alert you every half an hour to take a break from the screen. Some of the apps also let you monitor your screen time and alert you when you are crossing a specific threshold.

You should also try to increase your off the screen activities, such as book reading, spending time with children and involved in the house chores.

Make Sure Your Insurance Plans are Intact

Insurance is your ultimate fall-back support in any contingency. So, ensuring that all the important insurance plans like health and life insurance are running without breaks.