It's also very easy relatively to ruin your teeth. If you get 15 cavities thats 15 procedures to fix it. It gets expensive fast. Prevention is super important and infinitely cheaper.

Dental insurance isn't insurance. Think about your car insurance. It has a deductible, say $1000, and after that you don't have to pay anything to get the rest of your car covered if you have an accident. The maximum you pay is $1000. Health insurance is the same. Dental "insurance" is backwards. It usually covers UP TO $1000-1500. So if you need something simple done you don't pay anything. If you need a $40k set of implant dentures you're on your own. Dental insurance is quite literally the opposite of insurance.

The rate of coverage also used to be higher. Crowns on average now are $1200ish, they used to be $700 a decade or two ago, but insurance hasn't budged.