Phone Insurance

[JenJohnson79]

Is a RIP OFF!!! I've been with Sprint for 10 years. . . for 10 years I've paid my bill, paid extra for the phone insurance, bought/upgraded my phone every two years or so. . . and today my two year old chunked my phone into the toilet while I was in the shower! I went to the Sprint store, I have insurance, they will replace my phone, no biggie. OR SO I THOUGHT! I went into the Sprint store, told the guy what happened. He says "oh for water damage you have to call this number." I tell ask him, HOW? I have no phone. I don't have a landline. You can use one of the demos. So I do. I call and the lady on the end of the phone. . . after laughing at my situation! Tells me, no big deal. That will be $50, and we'll mail you a refurbished phone. You should recieve it by Dec. 18! WHAT!?!?!?! That won't work. I pay my insurance, you're supposed to give me a new phone. Will you give me a replacement to hold me over til the refurbished phone makes it to my house? No. Ok you're smoking crack. Thanks.

Long story short. . . I cancelled my insurance on the phones I have on my account. . .qualified for a rebate and got a brand new phone.

[Citex]

They are a ripoff, I have seen zero benefit from them. I dropped a phone and broke it once with verizon went to store and they gave me a 50.00 off coupon on a new phone, I had to pay 50.00 for the new phone which was 99.00 -50.00 with coupon PLUS TAX. Thing is that coupon was a current promotion so what did insurance do for me, NOTHING. Had to pay more money for new phone I could have just walked in and bought.

[LWimages]

They are ripoffs.
I stopped paying for phone insurance.
However, I do have a Personal Property Insurance from State Farm on top of the home-owner insurance. And that covers my laptops, camera, lenses, tripods, flashes, and my cell phone. I pay $25/month and that's how I got my iPhone.

I lost my 70-200 lens about 2 months ago and my phone when I was at the San Diego zoo in California. I called State Farm and told them what happened and they sent me a check for the lens and phone.

I used the money to buy the iPhone and the lens money goes to the lens.

[Dobick]

I only had to use phone "insurance" one time to realize that it is a losing proposition for the customer. At the time I used mine, it was $35 "deductible" on what amounted to a $150 retail priced phone. Insurance was 4.99 a month. If you break your phone at the 1 year mark, you have paid 60 dollars to insurance and another 35 to use the insurance, for 95 bucks. Saving a total of 55 dollars. Make it to two years, and you will have paid 5 dollars too much to get a refurbished phone at more than retail cost for technology that is at least 2 years old at that time. And if you make it to the 2 year mark without breaking your phone and having the insurance, you have just spent 120 dollars for nothing. I always bet that I can make it to the two year mark, and choose not to pay for that kinda stuff.

Now it would make sense to me to get insurance on some of the smart phones, but (and this is a mighty big 'ol butt) they don't offer phone insurance on most of the higher priced smart phones, so you end up being pretty much SOL.

I feel pretty much the same way about all extended warranties. If you do the cost breakdown, it hardly ever makes sense to pay extra for that sort of thing, at least as an individual consumer.

[Bella]

Jennifer, next time, ask for customer retention . .. those people will bend over backwards for you when everyone else is just blowing you off. I had dealings with them earlier this week (long story) and they made things right immedately.

-Cindy

[JenJohnson79]

Thanks. . . I'll store that away in things I NEED TO KNOW!

[jdwme]

The $50 is a deductible just like all insurance has on it. And the insurance is through an insurance company, it just appears on your wireless bill but the service is not provided by the phone companies. There is one phone insurance company now and they are Asurion. They recently had a class action lawsuit brought on them with the refurbished phone deal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16875928/page/2/
Insurance isn't seen by cell phone companies as something that brings in revenue since it's offered by an outside company so it doesn't really matter how long you've paid for it.

And I've never seen a higher end smart phone not be eligible for insurance. Actually T-Mobile has a multi tiered deductible system based on the phone you have. And you can pay as much as $110 for the higher end phones. Did you know warranty replacements are also refurbished? But refurbished isn't always used. Most are returns the store takes, and in most stores if the phone was rung out and activated on an account even if it doesn't leave the store, it's a return, and eventually becomes "refurbished"

[Dobick]

Apple I-phone is not coverable by insurance -- My friend had a treo 650 that was not eligible for insurance, and my current Blackberry Curve is not coverable by insurance, at least not from the phone company. I guess I should add, that I am with cingular, so my view may be completely skewed.

[jdwme]

yeah i heard about the i-phone but I just don't consider it a high end smart phone, just a high end multimedia phone. And I've never heard of a company not insuring a blackberry or a Treo. That's crazy I've worked for all the companies except Cingular/at&t and I guess I figured theirs was the same. I know if I had my dash covered it would be a $110 deductible as part of their multi-tiered coverage. I do know that you only have about 15 days to add insurance once you purchase a phone and that's an insurance company policy, not a phone company policy.