A helping hand from numbers leads to objective opinions and confident decisions!!!

  Slightly more than 3 years ago, I did something unconventional – I bought into a very high deductible health insurance plan for our family. The deductible was INR 5 Lacs. Essentially, I was on my own for this much money – EVERY YEAR, in case I or any of my family members needed any hospital care. The upshot for this big risk I took: -           I paid a very meagre premium for a policy with no sub limits – especially no daily “room rent” limit which renders Sum Insured of normal “ground up” policies mostly useless to the full extent -           The Sum insured I got was quite high for the premium paid – just under INR INR 5,000/- for a Sum Insured of INR 20 Lacs Why did I go for such a high deductible health insurance policy and took such a seemingly big risk? Because the numbers I did brought out a very different picture and I made my decision to be self insured for first INR 5 Lacs a...

After what seems a really long time, I went on a long vacation to a quaint sea side town with wife, son and my parents in tow. While doing the bookings, I always try to scrimp on paying for a hotel room. However, during my last vacation at Goa, I did realize that if chosen well, some hotels / resorts can be worth the money they charge. Location, space, good upkeep of the property and quality of ancillary services (like F&B service) can justify the asking price of some properties. But still, how much should you be paying for your stay, say on per day basis for a room? We all know that the range is vast, and we need to cap it, as the higher we go, our net worth is getting the hit, while the pleasure derived from the stay experience may not be as high as the price. The rule of thumb I have devised to decide my daily room rent budget when travelling is linked to my primary residence market value, or an amount designated for buying my primary home as I do not own any residential p...