The most exciting fight you’ll never care about
Let’s be honest: if someone at a party started talking about money or insurance, you’d drink your drink faster than your liver could handle it. These are two of the “necessary evils” of being an adult, along with taxes, school debt, and the never-ending “update your password” emails.
But alas, dear reader, you will have to learn the difference at some point. If you don’t, the universe will punish you by overdrawing your checking account and denying your dental claim at the same time.
It’s Insurance vs. Finance today, and the goal is to see who can ruin your life the slowest. Get your iced coffee (triple shot, oat milk, and extra capitalism) because this trip is going to be as insane as a TikTok dancing trend your mom just found out about six months too late.
The “Fun” Brother or Sister Who Makes You Feel Like You’re Rich
Finance is like that one friend who is a terrible mess and keeps telling you that you have money even while your bank app says you don’t. It talks about debts, investments, budgets, and the horrible truth that brunch costs as much as a vehicle payment.
You are paid on Friday.
On Monday, your rent will be taken out of your account automatically.
By Tuesday, you start researching for “how to sell plasma without looking desperate” on Google.
Finance doesn’t care about your feelings; it cares about math, growth, “compound interest” (which sounds great until you find out it’s not), and how to persuade you to worship your FICO score like it’s an ancient god who might give you a mortgage if you do what it says.
Also, money experts love to yell at you for going to Starbucks. As if not getting a $6 latte can make your student loans go away.
Insurance: The overly cautious parent who makes you pay rent to sleep on the couch
“Hello darkness, my old friend” is more fun than insurance. It keeps you safe from awful “what ifs,” but it costs you like they really happened.
Do you need health insurance? That’s great. This is a “premium” so high that you’ll have to get a second job to keep the one you now have.
Do you need car insurance? Yes, because it feels like having a license means that society thinks you’re about to reenact “Fast & Furious 5: Suburban Minivan Drift.”
What could be worse? You want horrible things to happen so you can feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. For instance:
- “God, I hope I really break an arm so this $400-a-month plan stops feeling like highway robbery.”
- Or this: “If my roof DOES fall in, I’ll finally get that farmhouse look.” Joanna Gaines keeps showing off.
It’s like handing your paranoid uncle rent money because he thinks the roof might fall down at any time, but it “probably won’t.”
The Gaslight Olympics: Which One Hates You More?
“Don’t worry, you can get rich if you work hard!” says finance. You bought gum, not because you’re poor because the economy is awful.
Insurance: “If something bad happens, we’ll keep you safe!” That means you have to pay for a disaster that never happens for 14 years.
Both are quite good at making you feel like it’s your fault:
- Your money says you should have put money into stocks when you were 12.
- I guess insurance blames you for being a person.
It’s the classic American thing: pay to live, then pay more to keep alive. “Pick your fighter” was what capitalism really meant.
Pop Quiz: Which One Really Helps You?
It’s a trick question; neither one!
If you can wait to enjoy avocado toast until you retire, your money might save you (spoiler: it will).
Insurance might aid you if something horrible happens. But only if the disaster is laid out in the 384-page contract in beige lawyer lingo.
You might not lose all your money if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, you’ll see GoFundMe campaigns for surgeries, car accidents, or just getting through another year in this economy.
Who truly came out on top? Not either. Who truly lost? You. Well done, sweetheart.
The Old Way of Choosing Between Evil A and Evil B
But you don’t actually get to pick. You sign up, they take your money automatically, and you cry.
Finance is in charge of the money you think you have. Insurance takes care of the money you’ll never see again. They are the Avengers of Draining Your Wallet™.
“Put money away for the future!” Yes, but you should also save for when your fridge breaks down. You have to do both because that’s what society demands, like paying taxes or watching your cousin’s MLM pitch “just to be supportive.”
Conclusion: No matter what, you’re in trouble.
So, is insurance better than finance? Yes. Yes, they will both ruin your fun money. Yes, both of these will delay you from becoming an adult.
Yes, you’ll smile, sign the papers, and keep swiping your debit card until it sparks like a charger for a dead iPhone.
But at least you read this all the way through. That usually suggests you care about your money future. Or, more likely, you’re putting off something much more important. Good luck, champ, no matter what. Don’t use up all your savings at Target.
Final Thoughts
And before you give up on being an adult, realize that insurance and money aren’t enemies. They’re like that bad couple who say they’re “working on it” yet spoil every group dinner nevertheless. You can’t get away from them, so you might as well learn how to play their sad little game.
Finance wants you to have grandiose dreams, retire on a yacht, and drink expensive drinks in Florida. Insurance only wants to make sure you don’t drown on the way there.
Both are there to keep you connected to “responsibility,” which is the thing you promised yourself you would never do when you were 15 and thought life was one long road trip with pop-punk music playing.
So, have fun on the ride. One day, you’ll look back and realize that the actual riches was the friends you gained while you complained about being broke, whether it was your 401(k) or that expensive vehicle insurance policy.
Now you can either pay a bill or ignore this whole system and use DoorDash instead. In the end, both of them will locate you.
