No insurance for iPhone - deal breaker for me.

kavika411 said:

If that is true, I won't get an iPhone. I have never had a cell phone or iPod which I voluntarily upgraded. Upgrades have always been the result of the thing dying or me breaking it somehow. Also, I have to have a belt clip for my iPhone, and I am sure several will be available to choose from; but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that you won't be able to use a belt clip AND have a skin on the iPhone - which makes it all the more suseptical (sp?) to damage.

No insurance - no thanks.

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Could be that your homeowners policy would cover it however. It's something you'd have to ask your agent.

Ya, kind disappointed that there is no insurance. I mostly hope they offer a big discount if you need a replacement (for whatever reason).

I find it strange that Cingular/AT&T is the only carrier that doesn't offer insurance on PDA/Smartphones.

there is no way apple is releasing this without applecare. it will be there.

I know my Mastercard covers accidental damage and theft up to like $1000 on anything I buy for a few months. Your credit card company may offer something similar.

Scannall said:

Could be that your homeowners policy would cover it however. It's something you'd have to ask your agent.

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I would never put something that small on homeowners ... you would end up paying for it 12 fold over the next 10 years with the increased rates.

When I switched my renters insurance from NJ to California ... they told me they were going to research if I had made a claim in the past 10 years ... and if I had, I would be dropped regardless of how small. Gotta love insurance companies

This is nothing new. Cingular/AT&T has never offered insurance on smartphones.

And by the way - purchasing insurance on small ticket items like consumer electronics is basically always a losing proposition. The companies selling insurance expect to make money on it (otherwise they wouldn't be in business) - which means they expect, on average, for you to pay more in premiums than they have to pay out.

You're paying the insurance company to assume the risk on your part - for peace of mind. Insurance is only worth it if the loss of the item being insured would be financially catastrophic (i.e. your house, your car, your health, etc.) Otherwise, you will always be better off in the long-run just to assume the risk yourself, and skip the insurance.

Ditto extended warranties - like Applecare. Do you think Apple sells it because they expect to lose money? Out of charity? No way. On average, each Applecare policy costs you more than the repairs it will need to cover. Occasionally, you may get lucky, but on average, it's a losing proposition for you.

Somewhat ominously, the fact that Cingular is not offering insurance on the iPhone means they expect it to break rather easily. If they expected it to be durable, they would offer insurance for $10 / month and make a killing. As it is, they know that in order to make a profit on the insurance given the expected vulnerability of the iPhone, they would have to charge more money than people would be willing to pay for insurance.

kavika411 said:

Maybe this is old news from Thinksecret.com, but it is new to me:

Think Secret sources have also been dropping additional iPhone-related details over the past weeks. Among the more notable pieces of information: there will be no insurance offered for the iPhone from AT&T or Asurion, the firm AT&T uses for its insurance plans. This means customers who break or lose an iPhone will be unable to replace it at a nominal cost.

If that is true, I won't get an iPhone. I have never had a cell phone or iPod which I voluntarily upgraded. Upgrades have always been the result of the thing dying or me breaking it somehow. Also, I have to have a belt clip for my iPhone, and I am sure several will be available to choose from; but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that you won't be able to use a belt clip AND have a skin on the iPhone - which makes it all the more suseptical (sp?) to damage.

No insurance - no thanks.

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a belt clip? how geeky!

Boy, I can't believe I bought my first gen 5 GB iPod for $400 and have used it all these years with no insurance - what a fool I've been.

If damage/loss wasn't covered by a warranty, how would you buy another iPhone if yours broke or was lost? ...You've already signed a two year contract with AT&T, and the iPhone is supposedly only available for purchase with a new 2-year contract.

...Clearly, there is still more to be announced.

so, the applecare won't work for you?

Eric1285 said:

I know my Mastercard covers accidental damage and theft up to like $1000 on anything I buy for a few months. Your credit card company may offer something similar.

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*sigh* ... if only I had a credit card. Gonna be a few more years of paying off the ex-girlfriends mess.

/dev/toaster said:

*sigh* ... if only I had a credit card. Gonna be a few more years of paying off the ex-girlfriends mess.

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You and me both, my friend. You and me both. Those messes are usually the dirtiest.

I had insurance on one phone I owned and realized what a bad deal it was when I ruined the phone. The monthly fee plus the deductible made the replacement price just about what a phone would cost. Now the phone was not in the $500/600 range so it is a different situation. I would think homeowners would cover the iPhone but I would check before I jumped. I don't plan on getting a first gen iPhone due to price but perhaps a second gen is in my future. It would have to be quite a bit cheaper. I have also had recent phones that I could not get insurance on either like the Sony Ericsson W810i which is a great phone so not offering insurance is not unusual. Now I have to qualify that remark about insurance. I could not get it when the phone was purchased but a few months later it was offered. So maybe the iPhone will be eligible at some point. I only paid $75 for the 810i so I was not tempted this time either. The $50 deductible would make it a dumb idea.

This really isn't a bad thing. The company Cingular/AT&T contracts the insurance coverage out to SUCKS BALLS.

Edit: And I don't mean testicles, I mean ones like these.

You can also buy insurance through a third party. Other than that, I'd get an invisible skin and hope for the best =)

Eric1285 said:

You can also buy insurance through a third party. Other than that, I'd get an invisible skin and hope for the best =)

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Yes, but is there any 3rd party insurance companies for cellphones that you can trust ? I did some googling around and found a ton of companies, but most of the sites smelled a little shady.

mrowl said:

so, the applecare won't work for you?

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applecare has never covered accidental damage or user abuse...

aricher said:

Boy, I can't believe I bought my first gen 5 GB iPod for $400 and have used it all these years with no insurance - what a fool I've been.

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ahahha same here...its just now finally clicking

aricher said:

Boy, I can't believe I bought my first gen 5 GB iPod for $400 and have used it all these years with no insurance - what a fool I've been.

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You know how it works though, if you don't buy the insurance ... it will break 61 days after you buy it. (1 day after the manufacture warranty runs out)

I think it's silly to call it a deal breaker. First, Cingular never insures their PDA phones. Second, you can get something like safeware.com. It's actually way better than anything Cingular would offer. Cell phone insurance is a joke when provided by a carrier.

Eric1285 said:

I know my Mastercard covers accidental damage and theft up to like $1000 on anything I buy for a few months. Your credit card company may offer something similar.

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If you believe that, you'd better check the fine print. The insurance that credit cards offer is SECONDARY insurance that only pays out after any other insurance that you might have pays. In this case they would probably require you to submit it to your homeowner's or renter's insurance if you have any. The rental car insurance works tthe same way - only after your own car insurance has paid out will it kick in (it may pick up the deductible but that is all). I know because I just went through this with them.

danny_w said:

If you believe that, you'd better check the fine print. The insurance that credit cards offer is SECONDARY insurance that only pays out after any other insurance that you might have pays. In this case they would probably require you to submit it to your homeowner's or renter's insurance if you have any. The rental car insurance works tthe same way - only after your own car insurance has paid out will it kick in (it may pick up the deductible but that is all). I know because I just went through this with them.

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Well yes, that's how most credit card insurance policies work, but I don't have homeowner's or renter's insurance, so I'm in the clear =) In fact, I'm going to try and get them to pay for replacing the casing on my Macbook Pro since I accidentally got a couple small dents in it.

sprescott1974 said:

there is no way apple is releasing this without applecare. it will be there.

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Applecare is an extend warranty essentially against product defects/faults. It is not for lost/stolen/ooops-I-just-dropped-it-down-the-stairs-then-stamped-on it. In short it is not an insurance.

My back account will insure 2 phones worth £450 ($900) each.