Are things you never use worth buying?

Most of us will never reach the top speed our cars are capable of. Most people never take their four-wheel drive vehicles off-road. Half of my friends don’t use half of the features of their smartphones. And on and on. Were those things worthless?

There is a small point about insurance features to be made here. One argument has it that we should not care so much about the features in an insurance policy that make it flexible, such as special events increase options and others because they are 'rarely used' or because they ‘don’t affect the claim’. At first hearing this argument can be persuasive. If you don’t need them, don’t use them, then why consider them?

Before we explore that question let me explain how it came up. In essence a product manager was arguing that the only thing that should count is the actual cover in the contract. Be it life cover, income protection, or trauma. ‘The claim is the central issue’.

I agree, the claim is the central issue, but it is not the only one. Policies benefit non-claimers too.
You might think this is a bit pedantic but the value of an insurance policy comes from the wider point: knowledge that a claim will be paid if necessary, not only when a claim is actually paid.