By the law of averages, all insurance is a waste of money. Insurance companies make money. They do this by collecting more fees than they pay out. In aggregate, they win and you lose.

The real question to ask is, "can I afford this insurance" and "is it worth it to me". If you buy a $250 mp3 player and the "insurance" is $300 and lasts for 6 months, it's a waste of money, because you aren't going to break your mp3 player twice in 6 months. But if it's $20 to insure your $10,000 of camera equipment which has a replacement cost equal to a month of income, then you should probably go for it. It's a bad deal, but $20 is the cost of a few beers, which is also a bad deal.

Anyway, someone makes money on every transaction. That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be a party to that transaction.