There are insurance companies that offer track day insurance. If you go, buy it. See
http://prosure.net for example.
People sometimes die and get hurt at track days. The question is whether or not at a novice level the risk of an accident is greater than the potential benefit that comes from improving your driving skills. Driving, in general, is dangerous. Look around you...people talking on phones, while applying make-up or shaving, and drinking a latte all at the same time. Want to discuss risk? At least at a track day you have confidence that people are paying attention to driving, and are most likely sober.
Like S4, when I go to the track I never aim to set the fastest possible time. I go to work on a specific aspect of my driving and focus on that. My ego is left in the paddock.
Going to a driver's school (as opposed to a HPDE) is safer. Those schools run by BMW CCA are usually the safest around. Still, there is an element of risk and that needs to be pondered.
Frankly all of my driver's schools and decades of auto-x saved my son's and my life about a year ago. I was driving on a rain slicked mountain road in my 2005 Mini Cooper S. My then 7 year old son was in the front with me because i felt that was safer than the back of the Mini. As we came around a corner at a moderately slow speed, a girl in a 4Runner coming the other way was skidding out of control into my lane. Had I lacked the experience that led to my willingness to FLING the car out of the way in an extremely aggressive manner, while also not going off the side of the road, it would have been a head-on collision. However, I managed to get far enough out of the way that she just grazed the side of the Mini. After exchanging information I continued taking my son to school in the Mini and drove it to the body shop.
As I said...it is a risk/reward analysis that you have to perform. Nobody can tell you which way to come down on it. But you now have my personal thoughts for what they are worth.