> Don't spend money on insurance, spend it on stopping your house burning down.
Or do both (it's funny how IT types love those dichtomies).
And if you tell your insurance about your extra measures for fire safety, they likely lower your rates. They might even consult you about which fire safety measures are actually useful (and they have the data: data driven fire safety, how does that sound?).
Since fire insurance tends to pay for damage repair when things didn't burn to the ground, they're also useful in situations that are not as life threatening as your example. We had a warehouse burn down in town, and the neighboring house was affected in that the windows on two sides of the house melted enough to be useless. The cost of replacing all those windows can easily exceed an individual's short-term liquidity (a single event might even exceed the rates paid for the insurance over its life-time) - for the insurance that was pocket change.
And if you tell your insurance about your extra measures for fire safety, they likely lower your rates. They might even consult you about which fire safety measures are actually useful (and they have the data: data driven fire safety, how does that sound?).
Since fire insurance tends to pay for damage repair when things didn't burn to the ground, they're also useful in situations that are not as life threatening as your example. We had a warehouse burn down in town, and the neighboring house was affected in that the windows on two sides of the house melted enough to be useless. The cost of replacing all those windows can easily exceed an individual's short-term liquidity (a single event might even exceed the rates paid for the insurance over its life-time) - for the insurance that was pocket change.