Hey folks!

Have you ever noticed how term insurance forms suddenly get very nosy the moment you mention smoking?

One harmless tick in the “Yes, I smoke” box and your premium shoots up like Nvidia before earnings day.

But when the insurer asks, “Do you drink?” and you say, “Yes, I drink occasionally”, the insurer basically shrugs. No major premium shock. No interrogation. At the most, a slight premium increase.

So what’s going on here? Why does one cigarette increase your premiums faster than a glass of whisky?

Well… because for insurance underwriters, smoking is the one vice that behaves exactly the way the textbooks say it should.

Several research papers (this, this, this, and many more) tell them the same story: smokers face a much higher risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, and pretty much every health condition doctors warn you about. It’s predictable, consistent, and statistically proven. 

And insurance, as an industry, is based on probability — What is the chance that this person makes a claim in a given year? 

Since they know that there’s a very good chance a smoker will make a claim, it helps them price your risk with the confidence of a CBSE topper solving a 10-mark question.

But you’re probably thinking that consuming alcohol also has its risks. And you’re right.

If you drink responsibly, the harm isn’t as immediate or severe as smoking, especially for the heart. Harmful or chronic drinking is where the real trouble starts. So insurers don’t slap a blanket premium hike on someone who enjoys a peg or two.

So they avoid blanket punishments. Your premium doesn’t rise just because you enjoy a drink. It rises only if your medical reports say your drinking has already started affecting your health.

Smoking, meanwhile, doesn’t need this detective work. If you smoke, they already know your risk profile. The data is so consistent, the premium hike practically calculates itself.

So the next time your term insurance quote jumps after you admit you’re a smoker but stays calm when you admit you drink, remember: Smoking is a guaranteed risk. Drinking is an uncertain one.

And if you’re unsure how your lifestyle choices might affect your premiums, you don’t have to guess. Just speak to one of our advisors at Ditto.

They’ll help you understand what insurers look for, how to pick the right cover, and how to avoid paying more than you need to. It’s free, unbiased, and spam-free.

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Mausam by Anirudh Varma Collective

You can thank our reader, Swasti Jain, for this beautiful rec!

Ready to roll?

What caught our eye this week 👀

The Forgotten Air India Plane

We’ve all forgotten something or the other: House keys, watering the plants, paying off that credit card or maybe even taking our wallet when we go out. But here’s the thing about forgetting. Since it’s essential to your life, you eventually remember it, usually at the exact moment when you need it the most.

And if it can happen to any of us, it can happen to big companies too right?

But what if it wasn’t something  as small or even forgettable?

What if… it was a whole Boeing 737?

That’s exactly what happened when officials at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, where it was found, asked Air India to remove the airplane from its premises. For about 13 years, the airplane just sat collecting dust parked on a desolate runway. To make it more interesting, the CEO, Campbell Wilson, wrote to the staff stating that the company wasn’t even aware that it existed in the first place!

And this wasn’t just any aircraft. A look at its history shows that it had lived several lives across its 43 year lifespan. Initially it was delivered in September 1982 to Indian Airlines. For about 16 years it operated under them before it moved to Alliance Air under a lease in February, 1998. Finally it was returned to Indian Airlines as a cargo plane in 2007, where it would be used by India Post. After Indian Airlines and Air India merged that same year, it became part of the Air India fleet.

5 years later, in 2012, the plane was grounded at Kolkata airport where it stayed and was quietly forgotten, similar to putting something in the ‘basement’. In the 13 years between being abandoned and rediscovered, the Tata Group bought Air India back, old departments were dissolved, new systems were installed, and in that transition the plane simply vanished from the airline’s asset records.

But here’s the twist. The airport forgot about it too.

It was sitting on a remote parking bay — far from busy terminals and far from anyone’s checklist. Staff changed, space was reallocated, and the plane blended into the background like a piece of oversized equipment nobody questioned anymore.

Then during a routine survey of old equipment and obstacles on the airfield, someone finally pointed at the hulking aircraft and said, essentially, “Whose plane is this?”

Because Kolkata airport was looking to do expansion work, it needed the space and that’s when they stumbled upon it.

When the notice went out, Air India looked into its fleet records… and found nothing and the CEO’s internal note confirmed it: the airline had genuinely forgotten it owned a 43-year-old Boeing. The plane wasn’t a skeleton — it still had an engine. A working (or at least intact) engine.

After being rediscovered, Air India took the long lost plane off Kolkata airport’s hands and took it to Bengaluru, where it will now be used to train future aircraft engineers. And for its final journey, the aircraft didn’t take to the skies — it took to the roads, traveling roughly 1,900 km on a massive multi-axle trailer.

Not a bad way to go, all things considered.

So this Sunday if you’re feeling guilty over that one forgotten task from the week before, don’t be. At least you didn’t forget a Boeing airplane 🙂

Infographic 📊

Readers Recommend 🗒️

This week, our reader, Simran Verma, recommends reading All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu.

The book dives into all the things we were never really taught in school like how to sell, build relationships, negotiate, manage our mental health, network effectively, and handle personal finance. In short, the real-world skills we need to succeed as we grow.

Neeraj tells us the topics feel incredibly relatable too. Thanks for the recommendation, Neeraj!

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday!

Until then, send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Also, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today's edition. Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message at morning@finshots.in).

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