The Village of Blorn Teaches a Lesson

This past month, I was asked to represent an organization I belong to, speaking to a large audience about what exactly health insurance agents and brokers do. I had to keep it relatively simple…my audience was 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. I have a 5th grader so I know the glazed look I get from her when I try to explain what it is I do. I wanted to avoid that look at all costs. Insurance has many parts, with every part being important to the understanding of what makes it work. I remember statistics in college being one of the less-popular subjects, so the classroom approach certainly wouldn’t work with my young audience. Ultimately, I decided to tell them a story, which I’ve paraphrased below.

Insurance, at its core, is nothing more than a way to finance a potentially large sum of money. So, my story paints a picture that illustrates that. A long time ago there was a village called Blorn that was hit by lightning storms every year. And every year at least one house would burn to the ground. The village was home to a carpenter, a plumber, and an electrician. Every year they would donate their time to help rebuild the house that burned down. The mayor of the village, being very wise, came to the conclusion that if one house could burn down a year, so could a lot of houses if it were a bad year. And the people that fixed the houses; the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician wouldn’t be able to feed their own families if they were spending all their time building up their neighbors houses without pay in a bad year. So, the mayor decreed that every citizen should contribute a fair, but small sum of money each month into a big pot, so that if that bad year happened, then there would be money to pay the carpenter, plumber, and electrician. Now it just so happened that the people noticed that it was the houses made of wood that burned to the ground, while the brick houses didn’t burn when they were hit by lightning. The worst that happened to the brick houses was the roof would scorch and have to be replaced. “Why should we pay the same amount as the people with wooden houses when the risk of our homes burning to the ground is so much less?” they asked. “We would only need the carpenter.” The mayor agreed with them and reduced the amount they had to pay to reflect the lessened risk of their brick houses burning to the ground.

Now it just so happened that there was one man who lived underground. “My home won’t burn to the ground if it gets hit by lightning,” he said. “It’s already in the ground!” And he refused to pay anything into the pot.

They were a friendly village, so of course arrangements were made for the people who couldn’t afford to pay the full monthly amount. The rest of the villagers decided to pay just a little more to make up the difference. There’s more to the story, but I’ll skip to the end. Sure enough, one dreadful season, a particularly powerful storm came through. However, no homes were burned to the ground. In fact, no home got hit by lightning. What did happen is that it rained so much that it started to flood; most of the homes had minor water damage, which the carpenter, plumber and electrician could afford to repair. They were able to feed their families and pay their bills with the money in the pot. But the man who lived underground had everything totally destroyed and lost everything. The workmen were all busy with the other houses and didn’t have the time to help him. Because he didn’t pay anything into the pot, he couldn’t even hire anyone from the other village.

All of this simply set the stage for how insurance works, and illustrates the tough choices that come up. Before I went into all the myriad ways agents and brokers help by guiding people to the choices that make sense to them, making sure claims are paid, researching the workmen’s backgrounds, and everything else we do, I asked the kids what they thought of the man who was flooded out. Some of them thought that someone should help the man even though he didn’t put into the pot when he could afford to. Others believed he shouldn’t take away from the people that did contribute. Eerily similar to the lines in the sand our country is now experiencing.

We certainly are in a “storm” of opinions on how best to handle healthcare. When all is said and done, however, the sun will rise to shine another day. So it is with healthcare. The parties involved are serious about providing answers to the healthcare dilemma as it now stands. Whatever is ultimately decided, it will be the beginning of a new day.

Until next time, stay healthy!