As we all know, some insurance policies are a good thing. If you've got dependents then you need life insurance. If you've got a car then it's a legal requirement to have car insurance. And if you own a house then it makes sense to insure against it burning down.

However some insurance policies are almost completely useless.

Here are three of them:

This can cost about £80 a year and it provides you with the ability to make one single phone call to report stolen or lost credit cards. The insurer then contacts all your card providers on your behalf to cancel them and order replacements. It also covers you for the cost of any fraudulent use of your cards.

Unless you have lots of cards, making a few phone calls to your card providers should not be so stressful.

Keep a photocopy of all of your debit and credit cards, each with the emergency telephone number written next to it so if your cards ever gets lost/stolen, you can cancel your cards and order replacements with a series of quick phone calls. Just make sure you keep this in a very safe place and possibly carry a copy when you go on holiday as well!

Shop-bought extended warranties on electrical goods are usually a complete waste of money because generally equipment is more reliable now. We believe that "Which?" has come to the conclusion that it would be cheaper in the long run to pay out for repairs if necessary rather than buy a warranty.

The Sale of Goods Act also states that goods must be of a satisfactory quality and fit for their purpose so, if an appliance goes wrong before you might expect it too, the retailer is liable to repair it regardless of whether the manufacturer's guarantee has run out.

Some credit cards offer free extended cover if you buy the appliance using their card.

In addition, you may find you're covered for accidental damage by your home contents insurance.

Lenders are extremely keen to sell this cover for loans as it's one of the most profitable financial products around. It's usually priced to provide a profit margin of around 80%. However, the small print of these policies is usually peppered with various exclusions and get-out clauses.

This type of cover protects the company that receives instalments. Generally it covers employed individuals and not the self employed.

The fact is you are paying your insurance premiums to the bank to protect them against you being unable to repay the loan. So whilst it may be great for them, it's not necessarily in your own interests. If you're taking out a loan that is secured against your home then some form of payment protection may be worth thinking about if you have no other form of insurance against loss of income. However, something along the lines of Critical Illness (which would pay a lump sum on diagnosis of a "serious" disease and would enable you to pay off your mortgage, or PHI may be more appropriate.

Many loans are unsecured and you often find that when you read the small print PPI payment is deferred for a period of, say, three months and that it will only pay out for, say, twelve months if you are unable to work. And your loan is only likely to be paid off if you actually drop dead.