[mitchellpkt]

Yep I found this approach works great.

I have a personally-owned domain name connected to my [paid] account with a smaller email provider.

The domain is managed at a large well-known registrar, I keep it paid up 3+ years in advance, and make sure to keep my contact information up to date.

If anything goes wrong with the email provider (including going out of business), I will just redirect from my DNS settings. If I get locked out of my domain for some reason, there are clear next steps for me to open a ticket with the registrar and move towards resolving the issue.

I got it all hooked up in an afternoon, many years ago, and it was completely set-it-and-forget-it, besides logging into the registrar occasionally to extend the domain ownership.

(continuous backups are another matter - mine aren't fully automated yet)