Insurance & Costs of having and raising a child

[mikh]

IMO, insurance is basically a safety net, and one needs to be careful not to confuse it as good investment. Going along with d.o.g., ksk's points, we can look at this from another angle.

According to me it is fair assumption that investment specialists should do better than insurers simply because the insurers' core competence is insurance and not investment per se. That said, we still need to pay the sales and management expenses for both the "insurance team" and the "investment manager". With the changing financial landscape in the last decade or so, the insurance people start to sell more investment products somewhat and try to morph themselves to also become investment specialists; but we can ask ourselves who is likely to get us better returns AFTER substraction of costs and fat salaries: insurers, investment specialists, Index funds, others or ourselves? We cannot conclude who is best, but i have an opinion on who may not be well suited. I don't count on the insurer for economic or investment gains; other than to have an interest in the insurer's shares

And YES, haha, I should think twice about asking the barber if i need a haircut!