Kusum Choppra

Many years ago, I wrote a piece titled “Are we raising a generation paupers?” In that I had argued that with all the proposals being made for investments in insurances of all sorts, SIPs, mutual funds, housing, luxury vehicles, savings for children’s education and marriages   plus the enticements of clubs and holidays etc etc,  how much did  the ordinary middle class  family have left to actually live on after all those putaways? This morning a wealth management CEO told readers that he put 20,000/- a month in two SIPS since she was born, for his  daughter’s graduation and post graduation. And then another for her marriage. Now if you are putting away thirty grand a month in three SIPs for your presumably only kid, how much must you earn to maintain the lifestyle while bringing her up, clubs, holidays, jewelry for the wife plus health insurance and life insurance and other investments, plus purchase of properties and cars? Suppose another kid came...

Was medical insurance brought to India only to fatten the already fat insurance moneybag, or to provide some relief from soaring medical costs to the general populace? Let’s face it: the profit margins are cannot be the only considerations in medical insurance. The American example is a recent good one. Here we have a classic fat-cat situation with medical insurance companies planning to elbow out senior citizens from medical cover from their offspring’s policies, without offering any suitable package that will benefit the seniors with a reasonably priced cover.   Are they so unaware of ground realities that they do not know that the majority of those covered belong to a generation when retirement planning was virtually unheard of?  Those generations earned and spent it all on a house, if possible and the education of their children that they may live better than them.  Whatever little was saved was spent on higher education and marriages. A tiny majority qualifie...