Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put those few bucks each month into some interest bearing account and then it can be used for many purposes instead of just a new laptop?
Insurance is about pooling and distributing risk. What you describe might be the right move on average . But people live in the world of specifics, not long-term averages. If your new laptop suddenly breaks a few months after purchase and the replacement cost would cause you distress, then the $20 you have saved in an account doesn't help much. By this logic, nobody should buy life insurance because the insurance com…
If you flip the statement, it's "do insure against things that can ruin you".
Whether life insurance is worth it depends on what you mean by that exactly. You can insure your untimely death with a benefit for your family, but there are also contracts that are more of a form of investment, and combinations thereof.
While arguably once you're dead, you're, well, dead, so you personally might not care that much anymore, your family might. And for them the loss of one of the primary earners of the family is probably ruinous, so it's reasonable to take insurance against that.
The investment case is different, it's essentially just an investment contract with associated cost. In that case, you're just buying a service (managing your investment, and to some degree insuring against investment risk). The two forms are commonly mixed together, and then it depends a lot on the structure and cost of the contract. YMMV, but I think over here these contracts have very intransparent cost structures and are commonly more expensive than getting a plain life insurance and a separate investment contract (or investing yourself, for that matter).
