How important is insurance?

[Percy]

Going without insurance will not stop you making money counting cards. Many other things will.

Insurance to the non-counting player, if taken with typically high expectation hands (19, 20, 21), will reduce your variance at a cost to your EV. Given that, it is aptly named.

Good luck.

[tthree]

What insurance is worth to you only depends on the your spread and the % of hands played over the insurance index and how strongly your count correlates to the insurance decision. Basically if you wong aggressively,use a large spread and your count is strong as it relates to insurance the side bet is worth far more than it is to someone who doesn't fall into these criterion. After reading your posts at the need for a large spread to overcome the crappy rules you battle as well as the necessity for wonging aggressively as a part of this strategy means you employ 2 of the 3 criterion. As long as you use an ace neutral count or an ace weakened count like zen your index is low which means the third criterion also applies to you. There is no way to quantify insurance advantage without sims for your use of the 3 criterion above.

My thoughts are British style of wonging and spreading would get a nice boost to advantage with insurance. If you use a stronger count (ideally balanced and ace neutral) than HILO or KO etc you have the 3 things that make insurance worth most to the counter.