Money makes the world go round

On Friday I got a call from someone offering me funeral insurance or something like that. Some people might not have a problem with this, but I was irritated to think that people today will try to make money out of any situation, including death. They make everything sound so wonderful, like it’s going to be a huge benefit to you and they’re not going to profit that much. Like they’re all “do-gooders” trying to make sure that people’s basic needs are met. Yet, the truth is that they make a whole lot of money from innocent people who are working hard just to keep their heads above water.

It’s the same thing with all types of insurances, there’s always some loophole or hidden clause and the insurance company or financial institute ends up getting a large amount of money that you have been paying for months on end. It really irritates me. Recently my brother needed to claim from his car insurance. They’ve been paying car insurance for like the past 8 years, and the amount the insurance company was willing to pay was not even a small fraction of the amount that they’ve already paid. So what happened to all that money they've paid? Of course the insurance company gets it, how else do they make their business?
It’s a really ridiculous system, and I’ve always believed that if you just save up money on your own then Inshaa Allah when a need arises you’ll have the money that you require.

At least the person who tried to sell me the “funeral plan” on Friday was not as persistent as some other people who call you. She accepted it when I told her that I wasn’t interested. Some of these sales people are very persistent and they sometimes act like there’s something seriously wrong with you if you’re not interested in what they’re selling.

I have to wonder...Where did all of this come from, insurance, medical aid schemes, hospital insurance...when did it all start? I mean, things used to be simple, people actually used to care about each other, and then the economic boom came along and changed everything, and now people only care about each others’ money! The more money you can get from someone, the more valuable they become. The strange thing is that the rich people never get caught up with things like insurance or medical aid schemes or the likes. The rich man understands too well that these things take more from you than what they give to you and we all know that the rich man does not like to part with his money. So it’s the working class people who get caught up in all this. We work hard to earn an honest living and then we end up giving a big part of it away and when we need to claim it back, they tell us that we’re only entitled to a small percentage. This entire system makes no sense at all.

Anyway, it sounds like I’m ranting too much so I’ll stop writing about this issue now because I think you get the point. There’s just something else that strikes me with regards to this, and this is how it relates to our reliance on Allah (SWT). Somehow things like insurance make people feel secure. So if I had to go ahead and sign up for the funeral insurance they offered me on Friday, then I would be secure and comfortable believing that my funeral expenses are all sorted out. Or if I have insurance, then I’m secure because I believe that if something happens to my belongings then the insurance will cover it, and so on. Yet, these things do not guarantee anything and in fact creates a very false sense of security. When we rely on Allah Almighty completely for all our needs, then we have true security and we most definitely have a guarantee that all our affairs will be in order, because Allah definitely isn’t interested in making money off us!

Money makes the world go round, yet it has so little to offer us, and it has so little value!

Image taken from: http://arguellezins.com/gallery/