It seems most bitcoiners prefer cold hardware wallets over online platforms but why is that? Considering platforms like coinbase are FDIC insured and have the best security in the business, it seems much riskier to try to secure my bitcoins on my own. I feel my house burning down or some other accident destroying my wallet is much more likely than losing it on Coinbase. And if there is a breach in coinbase, I get it back... so what am I missing?? While I’m not new to owning bitcoin, I am new to learning about it. So I apologize if this is an annoying newb question.
To make it easy and simple I like to tell people it is more safer to have your coins in my possession in my lock box then it is to keep them on a exchange. This way I know my keys are in my possession and not someone else.
Even if I could someway lose my hard wallet in my lock box there is a better chance of a platform like Coinbase going down for long periods of time as happened many times in the past.
The platforms are insured like you say but it will still be a horrible process I think to go through a hassle to recover coins that were lost or hacked. It is okay to store some coins in a exchange in my opinion but only some and not all of them .