Older insurance textbooks were written for a straight line: salaried job, marriage, children, retirement. Life today is far more varied — full-time freelancers, people living alone long term, couples without children, people working from anywhere in the world. New lifestyles bring a new structure of risk, and cover should be redesigned to match.
Lifestyle 1: freelancers and the self-employed
The particular risks: no group insurance, no paid sick leave, and income that stops the moment you stop working. What the cover should emphasise: comprehensive personal health insurance as the base, plus a daily cash benefit that does the job of paid sick leave, and a thicker emergency fund than a salaried employee needs. We have a full guide for freelancers. What to add here: fluctuating income means choosing a flexible payment frequency, and setting the premium against a low-income month rather than a peak one.
Lifestyle 2: living alone, long term
The particular risks: no second wallet to absorb the shock, and no one to care for you when ill. What the cover should emphasise: health and critical illness cover above average, disability cover which is so often forgotten, and starting to think about long-term care while still young. Our article on what cover single people need has the detail. What to add: someone living alone should keep an emergency file and tell one trusted person where the important documents are, because there is no partner to handle it for them.
Lifestyle 3: couples without children, or marrying later
The particular risks: retirement rests entirely on yourselves, with no children as a safety net in old age. What the cover should emphasise: weight shifts away from a large life sum insured (fewer dependants) towards long-term health cover, a pension, and caring for each other. A technique that works well: take out solid health cover for both partners while young, name each other as beneficiary, and review regularly.
Lifestyle 4: working from anywhere, travelling often
The particular risks: falling ill or having an accident far from your network hospitals and the system you know. What the cover should emphasise: a health plan with a broad hospital network, fluency in the reimbursement process and paperwork, travel insurance for periods abroad, and accident cover that applies anywhere, 24 hours a day. Keep your policy number and the claims line on your phone where you can reach them offline.
Lifestyle 5: several income streams, or a side business
The particular risks: each income stream carries a different risk, and some are tied to you alone. What the cover should emphasise: think in layers. Cover the main income with the standard set; for a side business that has become serious, consider business and liability cover appropriate to its form. When the side business becomes the main income, review the whole structure, as set out in our article on life events.
What every modern lifestyle has in common
First, cover must belong to you, not to an employer or a status, because status changes often now. Second, design from the real risks of your own way of living, not from a standard package built for the previous generation. Third, review more frequently, because modern lifestyles change far faster than our parents' did. If you recognised yourself in one of these, tell us about your situation on LINE and we will design a set of cover that fits it.
This article was inspired by material from the Thai Financial Planners Association (TFPA) and has been entirely rewritten.