There’s enough bad stuff going on in the world today that it can distract our attention away from the things that are really important - such as the wellbeing of the next generation.
For the (re)insurance sector in the Middle East, there can be few things more important than preparing younger generations for the realities of life – particularly financial realities.
While the economies of the region reap the dividends of growing affluence, growing populations and longer life expectancies, now is the time to take a long, hard look at the issue of financial literacy and make it a central pillar of future development agendas.
Children are never too young to learn about the importance of financial planning – and the central place that insurance can play in it. It would seem logical to begin to teach children about insurance shortly after they have grasped the basics of arithmetic since there are likely to be few occasions more central to understanding how numbers work than when it comes to budgeting personal finances.
Is it any wonder than young people think that finance is boring when we do not take the time to explain to them why getting their sums right at an early age is critical to their own personal financial wellbeing?
Make no mistake – this is not about brainwashing them to become money obsessed. It is about teaching them a healthy respect for money and how to hang on to it in the face of unknown risks.
The Middle East already has a healthy reputation for excellence in advanced financial education – but we need to spend more time and effort on much younger students, ideally school-age students.
Technology companies are already very familiar with the gamification of learning – as anyone who uses Duolingo (or who has a partner than uses Duolingo) can attest. It cannot be too much of a stretch to engage the same principles in teaching school-age students about insurance.
As we prepare to hand over to the next generation a planet that is haemorrhaging because of climate change, where coastal areas are becoming high-risk environments for habitation, where forested areas are at risk of wildfire – the least we can do is teach young people how and why they can buy protection against such risks.
The reality is that, without insurance, every single facet of life and business would grind to a halt. And yet we do not do a good job in promoting that message to the world at large. The (re)insurance industry is the sector paying for the damage wrought by climate change and Nat CAT – but most people remain ignorant of the fact.
If all children see is TV shows and movies in which ‘the insurance man’ is an unscrupulous bad guy and swindler, is it any wonder young people do not aspire to work in the (re)insurance profession?
Redressing the balance should begin in school. Insurance is not quite ‘the fourth emergency service’, but it’s not far off. It’s time we taught young people the truth about insurance.
Paul McNamara
Editorial director
Middle East Insurance Review