fairestcape:
I now pay my hosting service a tiny $2 per month for their excellent daily backup service. Never had to use it, but for this price it's great insurance and I sleep easier at night.
Although you've never had to use the backups, I hope you do test them on a regular basis. If not, you have a false sense of security. I've lost count on the number of times I've found that so called 'backups' are either incomplete, impossible to access, or simply not occurring where and when expected.
On a more personal note, I would never put 100% confidence in any backups performed by a hosting company, The only time I feel 'safe' in this regard is if I also have my own backups on a local machine. Admittedly my local backups are performed far less often than the server backups (once a month rather than daily), but I wouldn't feel comfortable without it.
Obviously I too have only learned the the importance of backups the hard way, and as you said/implied, this is the only way any of us really learn the importance of it. Sadly, I've also learned the importance of testing backups, and having backups in more than one location the hard way, which is why I'm posting this response to your excellent advise.
Cheers
Rod