Just a quick note: It might be helpful to use croak() from the Carp module instead of die(). That way, OP would get a backtrace to where the error originated and what the function arguments were.

With die:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use v5.40;

do_something();

sub do_something() {
    broken_function(10);
    broken_function(17);
    return true;
}

sub broken_function($val) {
    die("Bla") unless($val == 10);
}
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$ perl dietest.pl 
Bla at dietest.pl line 14.
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With croak:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use v5.40;

use Carp qw(croak);

do_something();

sub do_something() {
    broken_function(10);
    broken_function(17);
    return true;
}

sub broken_function($val) {
    croak("Bla") unless($val == 10);
}
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$ perl dietest.pl 
Bla at dietest.pl line 16.
    main::broken_function(17) called at dietest.pl line 11
    main::do_something() called at dietest.pl line 7
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So, in your example, that would be:

...
use Carp qw(croak);
...

sub insertItem {
    (my $insertCom) = @_;
    
    $dbInsert=$db->prepare($insertCom) or die "DBI prepare failed! : $
+sth->err : $sth->errstr";
    my $rows_inserted = $dbInsert->execute();
    
    if ( $dbInsert->err )
    {
      croak("DBI ERROR Insert Failed! : $sth->err : $sth->errstr");
    }
    
    return $rows_inserted;
}
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