Life insurance – need of the hour

Further to the permissibility of the life insurance as discussed in the previous chapters, it is important to see the real perils and hazards existing elsewhere, specially in India. In fact, it is the need of the hour to get everyone, specially the Muslims insured.

Mortality rate due to accidents and crimes

The columns of the accidents and crimes of any newspaper witness the death rate due to accidents, murders and suicides in every city which is not less than ten per day.
The percentage of muslims among the dead is 20-30%. As an average, each person leaves behind minimum five dependants: the wife, children, parents, etc. Thus, 100 to 150 people every month lose the earning member of their family. One can imagine how a family suffers and how its dreams get shattered all of a sudden. Daughter’s marriage, children’s education, parents’ old age support, wife’s life long needs, etc. become a never reachable task and the family goes for begging, asking donations or zakat from the relatives, mortgaging the house or jewellery and paying interest all the life. In most of the cases the children give up further education and become lower category workers.
The life insurance can be a blessing to a family which suffers such a tragedy. Instead of letting others have mercy on his family later, the man should plan in advance such that if he does not return home alive in the evening, the family should not have a helpless situation.

Old age or a curse?

The worst of the curse on the earth is when the man enters old age beyond 60 or 65 and feels compelled to depend upon the sons and daughters-in-law. It can be observed in every family. The parents invest their whole life on the sons but the sons on growing up leave the parents on the mercy of their wives. Since the sons are already obsessed with their responsibilities, their wives do not allow them to be so generous with the parents as they used to be in the bachelor life. As a result, the old parents live a pitiful life. There are several cases where there are although a number of sons and daughters but none comes forward to pay the hospital bills when the parents fall sick. The parents have to ask money from the sons for their medicines and other needs. They become a burden on their own, on family as well as on the earth.

India’s population is growing @ 1.38%. 4000 children are born daily.
Let us assume 50% of them survive until the age of 70. This means almost 2000 person enter in to the old age daily. A small percentage of them are those who have a good source of income until death. The majority has to live a life of dependence.

Is there any system like early Islam’s “Baitul Maal” which could come forward and help them? Once the second Rashidi Khalifah (13-23 A.H. / 634-644 A.D) Omer bin Al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) was passing by and saw an old jew sitting by the side of the road and begging. He inquired and came to know from him that the old man used to pay “jizya” (tax) until he was capable of earning, but due to old age and weakness, he had no other source of income, so he resorted to begging.
Khalifah Omer (رضي الله عنه) instructed the in-charge of Baitul Maal to release immediate help as well as fix a monthly pension for him. Since that system doesn’t exist anymore, there is no way other than that the people contribute and help themselves as well as help others.

Today insurance system can be a little substitute to that system. Before people used to pay money to the Baitul Maal, now they will have to pay premium to the insurance. The modus operandi although differs from that of Baitul Maal, but the basic objective to some extent is the same. The Ulema must go through the schemes of life insurance and realise that the objectives of the Baitul Maal are fulfilled at least to some extent.