If you bought your mobile from a telephone company or from a large area like MediaMarkt, it is easy for them to offer you mobile insurance when you buy it. What was an exception years ago has ended up becoming the norm and despite everything it continues to generate the same doubts. Is it worth having mobile insurance? Until when do you have to have mobile insurance?
Well, as in other areas, the answer, as a general rule, is that it depends on the terminal you have and the coverage you want. After all, a mid-range mobile is not the same as a high-end mobile or that mobile that has been with you for 3 years.
Mobile insurance
Although there are several branches that could be called classics – life, home, automobile, etc. – insurance companies offer a wide range of possibilities. In fact, this flexibility is one of the main characteristics of the sector: everything or almost everything can be insured. These options include mobile phones, since insurers move along with society in its evolution, trying to respond – in the form of a business, of course – to the new trends that are emerging and consolidating.
However, it is one thing that something can be insured and another that it is convenient to do so and at what price.
Does it pay to have mobile insurance?
This is the one million question. The answer will depend on several factors, from the cost of the mobile to the time it has and, of course, the coverage. In this sense, it is not so different from deciding whether or not you want full insurance for the car .
Insurance for ‘old phones’
If you are one of the few who still clings, for example, to your old Nokia (yes, that very resistant phone that has the Snake game from the factory) , that is, to a mobile without Internet connection, social networks or applications, it turns out quite evident that it is not worth taking out insurance for the device, unless it is for sentimental reasons. The cost of a terminal that only serves to make or receive calls, as well as SMS, is so low that it does not pay off.
The same can be said for low-end terminals, for which the replacement cost is very limited. Although the price of mobile insurance depends mainly on the value of the phone, it is easy that it does not pay to hire it.
To give you an idea, insurance for a mobile less than 200 euros is around 5 euros per month if you do not include theft . That means that after two years, the average life of a phone and its warranty, you will have paid 120 euros of insurance.
Smartphone insurance
Another very different story is if we talk about smartphones, then the matter has more edges. It should be remembered, for example, that the price of an iPhone XS can go beyond 1,300 euros. In that case, you will have to consider the age of the device and the price you paid for it. That way you can determine if it pays to have insurance for your mobile.
As an example, the price of mobile insurance for a terminal between 1,000 and 1,500 euros is 12 euros including drops and liquid damage, as well as theft. In total, after two years you will have paid 288 euros. In this case, the figures already accompany much more. In other words, you are not paying half the value of the phone on insurance.
Mobile insurance coverage
Although those two are not the only factors that, as a telephony user, you should take into account. In addition to those mentioned, it is also recommended that you pay attention to the coverage that they offer you. Before launching to take out insurance, you should always check what it covers and what it does not. This way you will avoid annoyances in case of theft or damage to the terminal.
In fact, it is common for a policy to cover a broken screen, but little else . They are usually those that the operators themselves offer you when you purchase the phone. In general, the outlay of money is small, only a minimum added to the price of the device.
There are two readings in this sense: the positive (for an almost symbolic payment we have some coverage) and the negative (if your mobile is stolen, to name a common assumption, surely you will not be covered). The final decision, of course, is yours. The important thing is that you are clear about how far mobile insurance will go and if it is really going to cover what you want or the most common accidents.
Among the coverages that most insurances bring as standard today are:
- Screen break.
- Theft, but not theft (that is, there must be violence for the insurance to compensate you).
To these are added the optional coverage of:
- Liquid and water damage
- Accidental fall damage
- Breakdowns (always with a maximum cost per claim)
- Theft
If you wonder what coverage you really need for your mobile insurance , there is nothing like knowing what the most common failures of mobile phones are. In this sense, the most repeated reason why we take the mobile to fix is because the screen works badly. So much so that 86.6% of repairs are for this reason. Far behind are battery problems, which account for 1.7% of failures.
Beyond the coverage, you should also review the amounts of the compensation. In the case of breakdowns, it is easy to have a maximum expense, as there will also be for the telephone. So that you understand it better, if your phone breaks it is easy that they will not pay you another, but they will compensate you with what the company estimates to be the market price.
Does mobile insurance have a franchise?
However, as we always recommend, watch out for ‘the fine print’, especially when dealing with insurance companies. If there is any commercial document that is characterized by being cumbersome, that is the insurance policy. Special mention in this regard deserves the franchise: you must check whether your contract has it or not, as well as the amount to which it is raised.
To give you an idea, some policies have a deductible of up to an extra 50 euros that you will have to pay if a repair needs to be done.