To be fair to Apple, they don't market the AirTag as an insurance policy but as a convenience. It's the old smoke and mirror tactic, with the added twist that this is one Apple product that's designed not to be used regularly. Unless that is the only things you attach them to are car keys that conveniently get lost between a sofa, or to dangle one outside a bag when travelling in order to tell the world that all you need to do is remove the overpriced rubber fashionable loop.
Indeed it is up to the owner to use AirTag in whatever way they prefer, but make no mistake that due diligence is required with whatever you attach it to, and this applies to trackers in general. If the tracker is clearly visible when the item is stolen, then a thief is obviously going to use it to their own advantage. They could potentially even set a red herring and place the tracker in the opposite direction of their eventual destination.
It's for this reason that I'm still confused as to why Apple entered the market in the first place, because Apple hasn't solved anything. Cook has stated several times that Apple only enters a market if they believe they can bring something new to it, which inevitably would result in them taking a respectable market share. But if the only advantage of AirTag is that it plays nice with the Apple eco-system, then it's no wonder that they're limited to how they can even market it effectively. It was the same with the original HomePod, a decent speaker that was sold on the premise of other Apple products rather than any meaningful innovation.
I purchased two AirTags purely out of curiosity (I know, I imagine this is the bait that most took) and have them attached to my car keys and camera bag. I treat the former as a means to understand where I might have left the keys initially before being taken, and find the latter particularly effective as the AirTag can be hidden in an internal compartment - perfect for potentially tracking expensive equipment.
