Bubba
Jun 29, 2003, 10:40 AM
Post #22 of 23
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Re: [johanson] Help please ! seguros monterrey/NY Life
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I, for one, did not misunderstand Johanson. My remarks should not be construed as a vitriolic attack on the LCS. The LCS is a valuable community resource within its limitations. My comments were in response to inquiries on this forum regarding insurance and I was and am trying to advise newcomers to be aware that it is not axiomatic that advice regarding products and services recommended by the society to newcomers are those best suited locally to the needs of the person initiating the inquiry. Rather, the newcomer should view the society as an association of kindred souls forming a social network in a foreign land but with no special knowledge concerning matters beyond its limited scope. Yes, they participate in community good works and I appaud them for that. But, when expats first arrive here they are vulnerable to the notion that membership in the society provides insights into local customs, goods and services that the newcomer can use as a guideline for decision making. This is not necessarily the case.
The new person naturally assumes that, if there is an insurance agent on duty on the LCS grounds along with other heath care specialists, that those people and the services they offer have been carefully screened and, therefore, endorsed by the society's management. I cannot recall any disclaimer when I first arrived warning me that the services proffered by these agents might or might not be the best available locally. The society's status in the Lake Chapala area provides it a platform vis-a-vis newcomers which gives it an advantage over other local service providers such as the agencies mentioned in these posts and there is an inferred responsibility that goes with that special status. That responsibility is to make certain with ongoing, timely periodic review that service providers operating under the apparent umbrella of the LCS organization provide the best and most competitive services in their respective categories available to LCS members. In my judgment, this is not happening at present - at least in the area of insurance.
Thanks, Donnie, for the tongue-in-cheek nomination to the society's board but hell would freeze over first. In my past life, I served on a condiminium board in San Francisco and that experience taught me two things: (1) Never volunteer for anything remotely like that again, ever & (2) Whatever one thinks of the LCS board, they have a tough and thankless job and, for the most part appear, to me at least, be heading in the right direction.
Meanwhile, the board will be happy to know that I will be making certain adjustments in my allocations of scarce resources next year and assigning the $45 I have allocated to the LCS membership fee for the past two years to the Cruz Roja. That way, at least I will be contributing to an organization that will send an ambulance to assist me when I need to go to the hospital instead of an e-mail memo informing me that my "lifetime" group catastrophic health insurance meant to cover me when I get to that hospital has been cancelled.
By the way, could it not be posited that people who join a society of expats in a foreign land (where customs and living conditions are at sunbstantial variance with those existing in the homelands of the homogeneous society members) are the last people, generally speaking, one should go to for insights into the host community's customs and services? Maybe, over time, such a society would become self-absorbed and cocoonish, using often superficial community outreach as a self-satisfying reason for being. On the other hand....
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