The difficulty for any one person is that they can only guess what the future holds in terms of losses.
The owner of a £50,000 house does not know if he will have a loss during any one year and, if he does, what it will cost.
He could put aside a few hundred pounds in a special bank account to prepare for a loss, but that loss could be several thousand pounds, the complete destruction of the house or nothing at all.
However, it would be different if he could get together with other people in the same situation.
The insurance company gathers together people who want insurance protection and sets itself up to operate a pool.
It takes contributions, in the form of insurance premiums,from many people and pays the losses of the few.
The pool idea can work because not everyone in the pool will have a loss in any one year.
In fact, not many will have a loss but the premiums of all who contributed will be sufficient to pay any claims.
The contributions have to be enough to meet the total losses in any one year but in addition will have to cover the other costs of the pool, including an element of profit for the insurer.
Even after taking all these costs into account, insurance is still a very attractive proposition
in most cases.