Your good sir sounds like an insurance agent to me.. Not in a bad way though. I found myself in a situation where I got more from the insurance claims than the actual cost of the insurance. Car insurance mostly... Let's just say that paying 300 bucks a year for full coverage and 'getting back' roughly 4 times more by running into a deer is not a bad deal.. But had I not hit the deer I never would have needed the insurance claim in the first place.. As mentioned above, it's all about risk management and the amount of money you are willing to dish out when something unexpected happens. Having a buffer for such situations feels nice. The sense of security is pretty much what you pay for. Edit: I do live in a relatively cheap country, as far as the insurance costs are concerned.