^What he said!!!
Seriously, people need to realize that APP is the biggest waste of money at least for the iPhone.
My state farm plan is $30/yr for $500 in coverage, $0 deductable, covers accidental damage, lost, stolen, anything!
All this for $2.50 per month! Thats half as cheap as any ATT plan for other phones and WAY cheaper than APP and covers more!
Apple Care is not an insurance policy, and third party insurance is not a warranty.
Some things you should know...
State Farm, like some other insurance companies, is notorious for flatly denying claims. They coach their claims representatives on how to reject claims and they show that statistically 40 percent of denied claims are not appealed by the insured. They bank on this. They tried to bank on this when they denied my insurance claims for a spinal injury I suffered from a two-story deck that collapsed. Their coverage, they stated, would cap off at $2000 despite the homeowner possessing $300,000 of liability insurance. Suffice it to say I got a lawyer and fought with them for six months eventually settling out of court. State Farm tried to claim my injury was the result of a pre-existing condition... this is one of many tactics that State Farm is notorious for using to do what they do best: Deny claims.
The propensity for Apple to deny a claim on Apple Care is much less likely than a third party for several reasons. Apple has brand integrity to worry about... It's their product and if they don't uphold their end of the deal they can suffer from negative PR. If State Farm denies a claim, neither Apple nor State Farm will be impacted much by it... depending on the magnitude and circumstances of the claim.
Inherent in Apple Care is also a service level agreement that requires them to involve knowledgeable resources on their end. A third party insurer might not be necessarily required to send you to the most qualified vendor or expert to repair whatever it is that you're repairing, unless you have paid for special coverages.
Granted, in the case of a qualified scenario for replacement you'll save more money through a third party insurer... but that depends on what they consider a qualified scenario for replacement. Apple sometimes will decide right away that if it looks like a repair is going to be lengthy and expensive, they'll just cut to the chase and replace the item. But a third party insurer again has no brand integrity at stake with regard to the operational capacity of the product... they can pay for a half-ass repair and consider the claim settled.
Furthermore, Apple Care provides types and levels of technical support that a third-party insurer has no responsibility toward. If your problem is not of a replacement nature, and is more a technical issue that might be software related and requires involved technical support, an insurance company isn't going to be much help to you.
It's in Apple's best interest not to screw its customers, and that is more and more evident in this day and age of blogging... word travels very fast on the internet when Apple doesn't do something right.
If you go with a reputable third party insurer you can get decent protection very inexpensively... but State Farm is one that I would be very wary of.
Basically, insurance and Apple Care are two different things. One insures the product against loss, the other provides extended service coverage.... Apple Care is basically an extended warranty. It's up to you to decide whether or not the extended warranty is worth it... On complicated technological products it often is, because the cost of repairs otherwise can be high.
Sometimes extended service coverage is a ripoff... but if even one repair on an iPhone costs you upward of $70, the likelihood is that it will be a good investment. Judging from the glitches we've seen arising in just the past three months it's very likely that Apple Care will pay off on the iPhone.
