Forty grand down the drain

If you’ve been watching the floods, you’ve probably thought to yourself:

“That’s no good … but at least they’ve got insurance, right?”

Maybe.

Here’s a quote that was sent to me by a homeowner in a flood-prone area in New South Wales.

That’s something you don’t see every day. Round figures, let’s call it forty big dogs … EVERY YEAR.

Of course, no one can argue that the insurance company is not doing its part: that $52.18 saving for paying annually is a total game-changer.

Seriously, though, a family can’t afford this. So what do they do?

Well, they opt out of flood insurance, which is exactly what the insurance companies want.

Now we could get angry at the insurance companies for doing this.

Or we could get angry at local governments that let developers build on these flood-plain areas.

Yet none of that is worth a squirt when you’re in a ‘once-in-a-century’ natural disaster (which in the Lucky Country comes around roughly once a year).

This is exactly why the floods are an unfolding disaster for many people.

And it’s not just homeowners: three-quarters of renters don’t have any insurance on their contents, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.

Maybe they don’t think they have anything in their house worth insuring … but they do.

The truth is, it’s the battlers who really get screwed when disaster hits — specifically the elderly and those on very low incomes.

Picture someone who counts out their coins each morning. They often go shopping at night when all the unsold meat is marked down.

Then one day water gushes under their door and short-circuits their fridge.

And hundreds of dollars of food — which they can’t afford to replace — starts to rot.

Now that is a disaster.

And right now, as you read this article, there are thousands of Aussies (many elderly, or ill, or young parents) in this situation.

So what can we do?

Thankfully, there are people at Foodbank in NSW and Queensland packing emergency food hampers.

Now during the bushfires, many charities (unfairly) got a bad rap for not spending the money quickly enough for the people who needed it.

Well, it doesn’t get much quicker than providing someone’s next meal. Even better, it’s also a freakishly good return on your money. For every $1 you donate to Foodbank Australia, their scale means they can provide $6 worth of food to battlers.

It’s times like this that we pull together and remember how good we have it.

And it’s times like this that our kids (or grandkids) feel the pride that comes from spending their money on helping others.

To donate, head to foodbankna.org/helpfloods

Tread Your Own Path!