Insurance or not?

One of the last things that I'm doing to prepare for my departure is deciding about insurance. Sure I've been mulling it over for a few months now, but the time to make a decision is upon me. The questions at hand are:
1. Should I sign up for the Peace Corps endorsed life insurance policy?
2. Should I get personal-property insurance for my laptop and camera?

If I had a lot of money, I'm sure it would be an easy decision to pay for both lines of insurance. But I'm a recent college grad and I don't have a lot of money to mess around with. So, at this point, I'm leaning towards declining both:

1. I don't plan on dying- but who does? Why not keep the $60 that it would cost to buy the policy?

2. My laptop is getting old now and I'm probably going to need to get a new one in a couple years any way. I'm also backing up all my data before I go, as well as bringing a few memory sticks with me. Point being that I won't be devastated if my laptop gets stolen or broken. I have a pretty cheap digital camera and I wouldn't be too heartbroken if something happens to it too. I'm not planning on taking anything else of any real worth.

Personal property insurance isn't necessarily cheap, especially compared to what the PC pays us. The insurance company that the PC recommends (Clements International) charges a premium of $50 for $1000 of coverage. At this point, I'm not sure how much I'd need to get covered, but it would probably be more than $1000.

It seems that not every PCV in Honduras gets their laptop and camera stolen. Will insurance give me true "peace of mind" or will I feel ripped off if I've paid $50+ month after month for coverage that I didn't end up needing? To be honest, I think that if I pay for the insurance, I'd almost hope that my laptop gets stolen just to have made it worthwhile.

**Correction: I was mistaken; the Clements policy charges its premium annually, not monthly, so that makes a huge difference. Thanks for the comments.

Spiders

Some people have rational fears like the fear of drowning or speaking in public. But when people ask me what I'm most nervous about in relation to going to Honduras, the first thing that inevitably comes to my mind is something very irrational. Sure I think about the difficulties of adjusting to a new culture and fitting into my community, dealing with poverty, strange food and all the other normal things to be just a little unsure about. But what I can't help shake in my mind is my hopeless fear of SPIDERS.

If I were to be logical about it, I'd reason that car accidents or heart disease kill many millions more people a year than spiders do. Logic would have me conclude that I should be deathly afraid of driving and butter and cigarettes instead of insects that are one one hundredth my size that mostly just want to avoid me. But tell logic to shove it because it can't see how creepy spiders are with their many beady eyes and their hairy legs and their fangs and the way they crawl and the way they surprise you then disappear when you look away. Yes, I'm like a six year old, I'll admit it.

Once during a mission trip in Bolivia, I stepped into the shower (which is one of those few places where you're completely exposed- both figuratively and literally) and found a Huge tarantula just chilling on the wall, staring at me with all its eyes. Okay, it was probably a normal-sized one, but it seemed big at the time. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw it lick its lips as it watched me step into its lair. So what could I do? I froze at first to make sure it wasn't going to jump on me and bite me in the face then I slowly backed away, put my clothes back on and called my friend to look too. Needless to say, I didn't take a shower that day. The spider won that round.

Seriously though, I'm sure that spiders won't be a real problem for me in the long run. I probably won't see very many and when I do, I'll try to man up and shoo them away. 'Check your shoes before you put them on,' they say. But thinking about Honduran spiders is just one of those crazy obsessions that you can't help avoid when you're preparing yourself mentally for what lies ahead. I just hope I don't have any more in my shower this time!