Mobile phone insurance with O2 - worth it?

RedTiger

I'm planning on getting a silver K800i on the cheapest contract possible but I'm not sure about the insurance? It's £7.50 per month so on a £25 p/mth contract it's quite a big difference but then if anything happens to the phone it will be expensive to replace.

Would you recommend insurance? Or is there another insurance company you would recommend?

redux

I'd say read the terms carefully. For instance, on the policy with mine I saw that unauthorised calls after theft were not insured, and the handset had a £25 excess against wholesale replacement cost. As it is a modest phone, and I have another the same, I reckoned the insurance was worthless.

Reading occasional threads here, it seems some people get bullied by salesmen that blur warranty issues into the picture, but if the phone develops a fault that is not your fault then it should be replaced under warranty anyway. Whereas if you're likely to drop it in water or off the roof of the car, then you need insurance.

timberflake

IMHO, all product insurance/extended warranties are worthless because you only ever end up claiming on a tiny %. What my girlfriend and I do is if we're offered EW or insurance on something, we decline and put the money we would have paid for it into our savings. Its amazing how quickly it builds up, then if anything ever does break we've got plenty in the bank to replace it. You'd have to be pretty unlucky for everything to break in a short period of time!

chrispyphillips

All that said, i'm paying £5 a month for my O2 insurance, and one day the screen packed in on my samsung. It had what they referred to as a 'bleed', which they said was a personal fault as I must have broken it (!) and I had to use my insurance to pay for it (ie £25 excess for a new phone)

So in all it was £85 for a new phone, as opposed to well over £100 to replace the very same, so ended up saving money.

I do have a gripe with insurnace companies, as it seems everything is 'your fault' and there is no way you can prove its a manufacturing problem! I didnt once drop it, get water on it, or use it in an inappropriate manner, so how can they say it was my fault!?

Its daft, but it is up to you, maybe if your home insurance covers mobiles you could claim on that instead, as long as you say the phone 'broke' whilst at home!!

timberflake

Of course, if you've got accidental damage on personal effects on your contents insurance it doesn't matter where you break it! However, also depends of what if any excess you have.

RedTiger

I doubt my home contents insurance will cover it, I didn't take out accidental damage cover this year. I'm generally not too bad with phones except last year when I dropped it in a cup of tea the day after I got it :rolleyes: That one has never worked since!

The cost of the cover over the 12 month contract plus the excess would still be cheaper than having to buy it on payg though I expect the cost of the phone will come down over the next year anyway? This time last year I wanted a K750i which was around £180-200 PAYG but you can now get it for £80 so weighing it up I'm not sure the insurance is worthwhile but then you never know .......................... :rotfl: