A Gig worker (aka Freelancer) is the buzzword in the current times. He or She might have donned many avatars such as creative/web designer, developer, tester, scrum master, sales person, project manager and a lot of such roles..

Life of such a Gig Professional is an exciting one. He might have taken some Full Time role at some place for a while, changed to a consulting role in a different company, taken a remote position after and so on. The rewards of being a gig worker are also handsome. No dependency on a single company, ability to plan our time which means our life as well. The financial perks are also determined by our skill and ability to negotiate which is not the case for an employee.

There are downsides too. Some times they may be pressurized to deliver with unreasonable deadlines, may be gently forced to work long hours than billed and so on. One of the heart burn would be holidays. When employees would have their vacation and holidays with full pay, freelancers won’t have this privilege.

The Privilege Gap:

The biggest gap would fall in terms of the future and health management. While employees would be insured (though may not be perfect) for a lot of eventualities like Life, Health a gig worker may not have that cushion. While Life Insurance Policy would cover in the event of any untimely death of the family’s primary bread winner, a health or Mediclaim insurance would cover all the expenses of a medical scenario and treatments like Accidental treatment, Cancer (Chemo, Radiation therapy), Heart Attack, Cardio Vascular diseases, Eye problems and a host of health related problems.

Regular medications

Most of the average citizen’s lives run on subscription. We pay a constant amount money to manage our life style diseases such as Hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, Fatty Liver, Respiratory diseases etc., These conditions slowly and steadily pull our financial resources down. While taking an insurance for a new policy, if these conditions are identified (PED – Pre existing diseases) the policy amount would be set higher with different names. After the expiry of the fixed term, these will also get covered.

Risk Protection

Having seen the above, though a Gig worker makes more money than a normal employee a sudden health or life event would drain considerable financial resources from him/her. That puts his future and current financial status at a major risk.
While such an eventuality is being covered for an employee by his employer company by getting them a Life Insurance and Mediclaim insurance policies, a Gig worker is on his own to cover himself.

Invest in Health

The most probable solution for a Gig worker is while he/she upskills constantly, works hard to make a lot of money they should also invest in their health and risk cover. He or She must spend enough hours in a day to improve his health by involving in good amount of physical activity, getting good sun exposure by engaging in some kind of field work. Though a regular jog, walk or gym activity is good, engaging in real meaningful physical activity gives multitude of benefits. This takes care of prevention while they must also invest a small portion of their earnings towards Pension earning Life insurance policies with Life Cover and a compulsory Mediclaim insurance to cover for any eventualities in our physical well being.