You are correct they should have bought the fire insurance. They knew the rules and chose to ignore them.
>>You are correct they should have bought the fire insurance. They knew the rules and chose to ignore them.<<
There is actually more to it than that. The owner was weighing the cost of insurance with the likelihood of his home catching on fire. It is the simple risk mitigation formula that considers three areas:
1. The likelihood of something happening.
2. The impact if it does happen.
3. The cost of protection from the event.
The three should be weighted and considered before an answer regarding what action to take is reached. And looking at the above three points it is easy to see why we don’t harden our homes from meteor strikes. Number three is rather cost prohibitive.
This homeowner made the mistake of focusing on the simple fact that, although number one is very low indeed (few homes actually catch on fire these days), he ignored the fact that number 3 was absurdly low.
Honestly, the odds were grossly in his favor, but it is never a sure thing.