What's wrong with putting an economic "value" on a human life? It is something we all implicitly and explicitly do every do. Implicitly, by deciding how much money to spend on increasing our own safety (e.g., how much extra to pay for a safer car). Explicitly, by things like insurance as you mentioned.

Burying your head in the sand and refusing to understand that the world is full of trade-offs, which can most easily be expressed via economics, doesn't help at all.