There is no "per month" fee for insurance or anything, so you're good there. I honestly don't know what it does either, but we've got it so it can't be that bad.
Also about putting items on the floor of your house. Every area on Layo has a cleanup script that runs every 5 minutes(?) or whenever someone enters or leaves an area. So, you dropped your stuff and the cleanup script got hold of it, and nuked everything.
There are ways to store stuff in a house without losing it, and that is by purchasing chests and crates. You purchase these and place them in your house then place your stuff inside it. Large crates hold 30 items I think, and cannot be locked. Small Chests hold 10 items and can be locked (although you really don't need to lock it cause stealing is against sever rules).
The only think you have the be worried about is having the chest get stuck open. Sometimes if you open it and put stuff in/take stuff out it just gets stuck. And when you try and close the inventory window will close but the chest still looks open. If that is the case you need to get everything out of the chest or you'll lose it. And that's about it. ZV-