Mobile phone insurance – pointless or practical?

I don’t have phone insurance – it’s always going to be cheaper to just buy a new phone. I broke my phone and my phone company gave me a new one in return for adding another 12 months to my contract (which had 6 months left on it).

Shame you couldn’t find a better example of them not paying out. I think it’s quite reasonable in this case – if you put your phone down on your car (instead of in your pocket or bag) that’s just not sensible. I’m afraid your friend shouldn’t have been so negligent.

Lastly, re this:
“And the thing is, why would anyone buy mobile phone insurance when you can get the same cover under your home insurance policy?
If your contents insurance includes personal possessions cover, all your belongings are covered when they’re outside the house. That means your phone is covered if it’s stolen.”

No it doesn’t. A lot of contents insurance policies specifically exclude mobile phones.

I agree that the person was very careless – never mind if it was her car, it wasn’t in a private drive at the time. She may as well have put it down on the pavement.

However, Mikhail is wrong about home insurance! We have unfortunately had to claim twice on ours in the last few years – each time, the premiums went up a little the next year, but quickly went down again. Not sure what you mean by access fees, do you mean an excess? That’s perfectly reasonable for insurance.

Interesting about gadgets insurance, though, might look into that. Who do you get yours with?

I just got an iphone from T-mobile and they bundled in insurance (at £8.99 per month). Was having a look through the small print and it does say under “what is not covered”, Damage, loss or theft where you haven’t taken reasonable precautions to prevent this or where you have been reckless about or indifferent to the risk of damage, loss or theft taking place. Some examples include wilfully or recklessly leaving your device unattended in a public place or leaving it on the bonnet, boot or roof of a vehicle.”

But, I don’t like the way they seem to be using intimidated to get one to commit to a minimum term because under “Insurer Details” it says the policy has a minimum commitment of 3 months and if I stop paying my premiums within 3 months, my details may be registered on a central database which may affect my credit status. It’s a wonder they don’t also say we may also send the boys around to have a “quiet” word with you. I’ve a good mind to write to them to say that I may report them to the Office of Fair Trading for trying to use undue “persuasion”. The salesman did say that I was being given 14 days free cover and the contract does say I have a 14 day cooling off period during which time I can cancel the policy but it doesn’t say how I should cancel the policy.

I Googled, “Gadgets Insurance” and I noticed there were excesses with companies there, which, with one company, increases with the number of claims. I think the best bet might be to include it in my building and contents insurance which I will look into.

There is a slight problem that you may want to consider and that is if you claim for a mobile on home contents firstly you will have to pay the excess which would be higher than a mobile insurance policy and there would be an in crease risk attached to your next years home insurance because of the claim.
There for you need to do the Maths to see which it the cheaper option.
If you are going to take out insurance, shop around there are better and cheaper the the mobile companies offer. Good Luck.

My daughter’s phone was taken from her handbag. Hiscox insurance insurance is refusing to pay despite being a Which recomended provider and having ‘personal possessions’ cover as standard (it’s not cheap!) on the grounds that she is a student and that, for students, possessions are only covered while in their hall of residence or in transit to home. They re not covered while the student is anywhere else (pretty pointless for mobile phones). Their website talks in detail of how we don’t need extra student insurance as theirs is sufficient, AND I checked this with them and they confirmed it (but conveniently failed to point out the exclusion). It’s also worth noting that an excess on the contents insurance (even if personal posessions are included) is also applicable to a claim for a phone theft. I didn’t realise this. Hiscox automatically puts a £500 excess on all policies so even iphones aren’t covered. I’m not sure how any house insurance is going to cover a mobile phone if excesses apply to those claims. If house contents insurance can’t/won’t cover replacement costs because of the excess and mobile phone insurance is a rip off – where does that leave us?

Some of these comments are so silly. Putting a mobile phone on top of the car while you get the keys out . Any one could do that . Its part of life when you are in a hurry. The fact is the phone was stolen and the person should have been able to claim. These insurance company’s just want your money and are not bothered about the individual that have paid their money in good faith. And that’s very wrong. It seems that these days everything that’s wrong is right and everything that’s right is wrong.

Q. When is an insurance policy actually an insurance policy? A. When it covers specific risks.
Q. What if it does not cover the risks I want it to cover? A. Insert the risks you want it to cover and get a re-quote from the company. The premium will be higher for each risk you add.

If companies advertise for sale “Mobile phone insurance policies”, they really should cover all normal eventualities in a standard policy, including as standard most of the possibilities that the “man on the Clapham Omnibus” would expect to encounter. That is my idea of what a policy should cover. They should not exclude normal risks in “small print” but the buyer must read the small print before buying. Insurance companies are there to produce profits for their owners: producing a service for customers is a secondary consideration!

Since my daughters phone has been stolen and I have talked to people about the claim, the only thing I think we did wrong was to tell the truth about the incident. The usual response from people is (firstly a huge suck in of breath) ‘you should have said………………’ followed by various scenarios that would have guaranteed us getting our claim settled. Unfortunately being an honest citizen these thoughts did not occur to me and I would have been very scared lying to the police ( eer breaking the law!!). Who says crime doesn’t pay? it certainly does with insurance claims!

James has made a good point. Insurance salesman will always try to make out that their policy is all singing and all dancing but what they don’t tell you about is all the exclusion clauses. It would be good, if possible, to get some info regarding the number of claims received for mobile phone insurance and the nature of the claims and the number of successful claims. Any insurance policy is only as good as it’s ability to pay out when you put in what you perceive to be a valid claim. In other words are you sure you’re covered for what you think you’re covered for.

Would which not like to comment on why they do not yet seem to offer advice on this issue, to include also tablets etc (ie gadgets insurance) . This would also need to consider insurance via bank
accounts. I think they need to look up on this one.