We (Preppers) Have Preparedness Insurance

As preppers, we all pay for preparedness insurance.
We pay for our preparedness insurance every time we add to our preps.
Planning, training and improving our supplies are all forms of preparedness insurance.
They are not traditional insurance policies written by an insurance broker. Instead, they are physical, informational and truly effective forms of insurance.


Preparedness Insurance Saves Lives

Preparedness insurance may not rebuild your house if it’s destroyed in a flood.
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But, it will keep you alive during the flood so that you can start over again.

When a disaster or society impacting event happens, nothing that any of the insurance companies offer will ensure your survival.

The fact is, traditional insurance is there to help out after you’ve lost everything. Everything possibly includes the lives of you and your family.

Having an insurance card in your hand won’t stop the brush fire that’s heading your way. However, if you’ve spent time planning and training for a fire, you’ve purchased preparedness insurance.

It’s that preparedness insurance that will keep you alive.


New Insurance Model

Maybe the insurance companies need to look towards the prepper community?  If they did, they’d realize the traditional insurance model is wrong, and at a minimum inefficient.

They’d realize that preparedness insurance and the prepper lifestyle works to minimize problems.


The Lazy Person’s Approach

In effect, traditional insurance is the lazy person’s approach to dealing with a disaster. After all, traditional insurance tells people to do nothing. It encourages people to sit back, wait and see what happens.

With traditional insurance, if something bad happens the non-prepper has only one option. That option is to hope they survive with nothing done to improve the their chances.


The Prepper’s Approach

As preppers, we purchase preparedness insurance.

Therefore, when something happens, we have the ability to identify the situation early and take appropriate action.

Our actions are based upon our planning, training, and other preps.

The action we take may be one of many courses of action available to us. Those courses of action are available to us because of our initiative and forward thinking.

The action we take is a result of your planning, training, and preparations.  You improve your family’s options by dedicating time, effort and resources to their safety and security.


The Moral of This Story

The moral of this story is that you are doing right by preparing.

While others sit back and base their safety on hope and chance, you are out there doing right.

You’re part of the solution rather part of the problem.
So, when people look at you and chuckle, or make stupid comments about preppers, just remember…

Just remember that when the balloon goes up, the disaster strikes or the lights go out, it will be you and your family who are more likely to survive. Not only are they more likely to survive, but they are more likely to thrive when others are failing.
So, keep it up!  Keep on preppin’!


Lastly, never forget, you’re just one prep away.


If you have any other information, suggestions, or thoughts on preparedness insurance, please leave a comment below.


Stay safe, secure and prepared

Many people who follow the preparedness lifestyle, say that their number one frustration is prepper time management. There is no doubt about it; prepper time management can be a big frustration.

We all know that prepping takes up a lot of time and isn’t easy.

Preparedness takes dedication and effort.  After all, being prepared doesn’t just happen overnight.
Novice preppers and those who recall our entry into prepping know that just deciding where to begin can be overwhelming.

Heck, the amount of information available on the Internet and in other places can be confusing. Where do you go? What site has solid prepping information? Who do I follow on Facebook? What prepping podcast is correct? You can go on and on.


The Process

Fortunately, there is an easy to follow mindset to help you overcome your frustrations with prepper time management.

If you’ve read other blog posts and listened to podcasts here and elsewhere, you already have the answer.

The answer is the OODA Loop.  What, how can it be the OODA Loop?

As I discussed in my Developing Your Mind4Survival blog post, the OODA Loop is used to facilitate our decision-making.

In other words, you can better manage the time dedicated to your preparedness efforts by using the OODA Loop.


Observe

To overcome your frustration with prepper time management, you must first observe your situation.

Observing your situation means to see what is going on around you. Look at and take in your daily life.

Notice who and what is important to you and your future preparedness.


Orient 

Orienting yourself to your situation is key to successful prepper time management.
This means doing your own risk analysis on the people and things that you observed in the previous step. In so doing, you’ll identify your greatest vulnerabilities that require addressing.

Three Risk Analysis Questions

As Ed Clark mentions in Episode 2 of the Mind4Survival podcast, the three risk management questions you should ask yourself are:
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• What (who) do I have to protect?
• What do I have to protect it from?
• What do I have to protect it with?

By answering those three questions, you will be able to prioritize your prepping better.
You will understand what is most important to you. This may be family members or something that is important to your survival.


Decide 

Once you’re oriented as to what (who) is most important to protect, you next need to decide what it will take to address your concerns.

To help you decide, you can make a checklist.

That checklist will include a ranking of all of your vulnerabilities and risks. Next, you’ll add everything you think it will take to address those risks.

As you do, you’ll find many of your vulnerability and risk solutions are applicable across a number of the items on your checklist.


Act 

Now that you’ve determined what your vulnerabilities are and what it will take to address them, you can take action.

Taking action means addressing your greatest risk and vulnerability first. Some of the things you do to address your first risk may help address other risks and so on.

Over time, as you work your way down your prioritized list, you’ll find that your early preps will have addressed some of the needs of your later preps.

In other words, by addressing your main priorities first, you will simultaneously address others.


The Solution

​This process, while simple, is the solution to helping you overcome your frustrations with prepper time management.

Whenever you begin to look at new preps, or want to decide on what to do next, use this system.

Sit back, take a tactical pause and work your way through the OODA Loop process.

Doing so in a manner that applies to your overall prepping strategy will help you manage your prepper time.

It will also help improve your overall personal situational awareness so that you are better prepared and ready when needed.


Lastly, never forget, you’re just one prep away.


If you have any other information, suggestions, or thoughts on prepper time management, please leave a comment below.


Stay safe, secure and prepared.