iPhone 4 Insurance

kimbokoo

Hi
I have recently upgraded to an iphone 4 but the insurance on it is £15 per month, this covers water damage, accidental damage theft etc, but are there any trusted cheaper ones out there.
I have seen a few places advertised for about £8 per month with 3 months free, but dont know how genuine they are?
Can anyone advise please.
Thanks

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there

My standard answer to this question is:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then after I stop screaming, I try to give a full explanation of why mobile phone insurance is a waste of time and money.

Let's say you decide to take up an £8 per month offer. Over 12 months, that's £96. Please remember that figure.

What you do then is dig out your home insurance policy schedule and see if it includes "away from home" or "personal possessions" cover. These are the same cover, just with different names. If your policy includes the cover, you have just spent £96 on phone insurance when your home contents insurance provided more cover. Well done on wasting your money.

If you check your schedule and it doesn't have the cover, you phone your home insurer and ask them for a quote to add £3,000 of personal possessions cover. Make sure you ask them for the following:

1. the annual premium
2. the premium to your next renewal
3. How much of 2 above is an "admin" charge.

Item 3 above is a one off cost, but it's worth knowing how much it is as if you have other things you want to do on your insurance (such as adding in Accidental Damage), do them now - it's one admin charge for the lot usually.

You want to compare item 1 above to the £96. You then need to remember that the personal possessions cover includes not only your phone, but everything you wear and carry in everyday life. That means you are insured if someone steals:

1. your handbag/briefcase
2. your wallett/purse
3. everything in your briefcase/handbag
4. your sunglasses
5. your jewellery/watch
6. your camera
7. your passport (yes; the cover is worldwide)
8. anything you take on holiday and leave in a hotel room

Finally, you need to remember that the personal possessions cover provides everything that the mobile phone insurance does AND it will cover "unattended loss". Here's an example.

You are in Starbucks. You sit down and drink your coffee, but decide you want a cake to go with it. You grab some money and go to buy the cake. When you come back, your phone and other possessions have been stolen.

Mobile phone insurance excludes this type of loss, because the phone was not "in your hand". Personal possessions cover would pay for the phone AND everything else that was stolen.

Finally, Personal possessions cover is usually cheaper than the £96 you were about to pay.

flyingscotno1

I just get it through the bank, mobile insurance for £7.95 a month, plus travel insurance and breakdown cover. Does the job.

jimbms

Well done Oscar it amazes me how many people are so thick they think they need seperate insurance when they have a perfectly goo cover everything house insurance.

minibbb

What a superb post from Oscar the Grouch!

I read some of his posts in the iphone 4 thread and have just phoned up Legal and Gneral who provide my contents insurance. I have paid a one of fee of £6.90 to add the iphone to my contents insurance for the year with an excess of £100 should I need to claim.

This is opposed to the £15 a month for 24 months that o2 offered with a £25 excess should I need to claim. Don't really think there is any competition!

Take notice of Oscar, he or she knows their stuff!:T

Jamjaw

Some people have a larger excess on their home insurance, so it is not so stupid them needing the different insurance. I think some people need to realise that just because for them it is cheapest to add to their home insurance, this is not always the case (to add to my contents insurance and reduce excess to £100 would be £250, much more than £96)...

So... Any recommendations for mobile insurnace in my case?

ste_coxy

Jamjaw wrote: »

Some people have a larger excess on their home insurance, so it is not so stupid them needing the different insurance. I think some people need to realise that just because for them it is cheapest to add to their home insurance, this is not always the case (to add to my contents insurance and reduce excess to £100 would be £250, much more than £96)...

So... Any recommendations for mobile insurnace in my case?

check to see what your bank has - if you have a fee paying account quite often part of the package on that is mobile/gadget insurance.

330d

Just a few things to add.

Personal possesions can be added to most home insurance polices but certain items have there own limits. E.g. There will be a limit for mobile phones which will be around the £250 mark, as iphone 4 is obviously worth more than it does have to be specified on the policy itself. This will cost a bit more.

Secondly, the excess for the personal possesions differs to that of the contents section. E.g. you might have a £150 excess on the contents but personal possesions excess is around £50.


What i have described will differ from company to company, but the above example applies to many companies inc the one i currently work for.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Jamjaw wrote: »

Some people have a larger excess on their home insurance, so it is not so stupid them needing the different insurance. I think some people need to realise that just because for them it is cheapest to add to their home insurance, this is not always the case (to add to my contents insurance and reduce excess to £100 would be £250, much more than £96)...

So... Any recommendations for mobile insurnace in my case?

Hi there

Check with your home insurer, as the excess for "Contents" and "Buildings" can be increased to higher amounts without affecting the "Personal Possessions".

There are 2 types of excess:

1. Compulsory
2. Voluntary

Voluntary excesses would usually only affect the "Buildings" and "Contents" sections, so have no effect on a claim for a mobile phone under "PP" cover. There are instances where an insurer will increase an excess across the board, but that would be if you had a poor claims record. It's certainly worth a call to your insurer before you fork out hundreds of pounds on something that may still be worthless.

One other thing to think about is the "behind the scenes" agreement between insurers. If you have 2 policies that cover the same loss (such as mobile phone insurance and home cover) then the insurers agree to split the costs. All you see is that you've made a claim on your mobile phone insurance, but in the background they are claiming some of the costs back from your home insurer!!

This means that even if you are trying to protect your home insurance claims record, you are being stabbed in the back by the mobile insurer.

brewskeyboy

Oscar_The_Grouch wrote: »

Hi there

My standard answer to this question is:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then after I stop screaming, I try to give a full explanation of why mobile phone insurance is a waste of time and money.

Let's say you decide to take up an £8 per month offer. Over 12 months, that's £96. Please remember that figure.

What you do then is dig out your home insurance policy schedule and see if it includes "away from home" or "personal possessions" cover. These are the same cover, just with different names. If your policy includes the cover, you have just spent £96 on phone insurance when your home contents insurance provided more cover. Well done on wasting your money.

If you check your schedule and it doesn't have the cover, you phone your home insurer and ask them for a quote to add £3,000 of personal possessions cover. Make sure you ask them for the following:

1. the annual premium
2. the premium to your next renewal
3. How much of 2 above is an "admin" charge.

Item 3 above is a one off cost, but it's worth knowing how much it is as if you have other things you want to do on your insurance (such as adding in Accidental Damage), do them now - it's one admin charge for the lot usually.

You want to compare item 1 above to the £96. You then need to remember that the personal possessions cover includes not only your phone, but everything you wear and carry in everyday life. That means you are insured if someone steals:

1. your handbag/briefcase
2. your wallett/purse
3. everything in your briefcase/handbag
4. your sunglasses
5. your jewellery/watch
6. your camera
7. your passport (yes; the cover is worldwide)
8. anything you take on holiday and leave in a hotel room

Finally, you need to remember that the personal possessions cover provides everything that the mobile phone insurance does AND it will cover "unattended loss". Here's an example.

You are in Starbucks. You sit down and drink your coffee, but decide you want a cake to go with it. You grab some money and go to buy the cake. When you come back, your phone and other possessions have been stolen.

Mobile phone insurance excludes this type of loss, because the phone was not "in your hand". Personal possessions cover would pay for the phone AND everything else that was stolen.

Finally, Personal possessions cover is usually cheaper than the £96 you were about to pay.

I don't have household insurance as I rent and don't really have any other valuables to insure. Are there any new home contents only insurance deals that would include mobiles and are likely to be cheaper than me simply finding mobile insurance?

Thanks

Oscar_The_Grouch

brewskeyboy wrote: »

I don't have household insurance as I rent and don't really have any other valuables to insure. Are there any new home contents only insurance deals that would include mobiles and are likely to be cheaper than me simply finding mobile insurance?

Thanks

To be honest, I know where you are coming from; when I first moved out of home, I had very little to insure!!

The thing to remember is that the cover provided is "new for old". Just to teach Grandma how to suck eggs, new for old means that if you were to drop your 32" CRT TV and break it, your insurers would replace it with a new 32" LCD TV. So even if you bought your TV for £25 from a bootfair, you still need to insure it for about £400 to cover the "new" cost.

If you go round your property and work out how much it would cost to replace everything, you may be surprised. Count PC/xBox games as £25 each and books at £5. Clothes are the worst to work out. Most companies do actually make a deduction for wear and tear on clothes, but it's best to count the "new" price, as it adds a little slack to pick up the bits you're bound to buy throughout the year!!.

Once you've done that, round the number up to the nearest £5,000. Then just go to one or more of the price comparison websites (they all do home insurance) and get a quote.

Do you use Quidco or anothr cashback site? Lots of insurers give you cashback for contents insurance. If you use cashback and get insurance for about £20,000, unless you live in the middle of a city, you should end up paying around £60 for a years cover.