iPhone Insurance - Why protect yourself?

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few months, you will have heard of the iPhone and all the fuss around it.

It is a handheld device from Apple, the makers of the iPod and the Apple Mac computer. It combines a mobile phone with an easy-to-use internet browser, and a big iPod (a music/sound MP3 player). So, in one device, you can listen to your favourite songs or radio shows, talk with your friends, and check the web for ... well, whatever you want to check the web for.

Anyone who has not yet used an iPhone is usually confused or refuses to see the brilliance of it, saying it is all a big load of hype and marketing, in order to sell the device.

Anyone who has used an iPhone is usually stark raving mad about it, how wonderful it is, how great it is, how it is the next major breakthrough in telecommunications and gadgetry etc etc.

The truth is, in the next few years we will all be looking back on the iPhone as a groundbreaking item that many other manufacturers copied. It is far more advanced than any other phone or PDA handeld device available - by a long way, although there are a number of copycat manufacturers rushing to create something close.

All this super-advanced technology means one thing to the price of the iPhone: It is not cheap.

There are a few knock-on effects of the iPhone being expensive:

1. iPhone owners will be quite careful of their new baby
2. Others will be jealous of your iPhone - because you are the proud owner, and
3. Criminals will specifically target the iPhone for theft.

This being the case, you would imagine that there is a lot of iPhone Insurance policies available. Sadly, this is not the case.

There is only 1 policy that specifically covers the iPhone as a stated "iPhone Insurance" (more on that later) but there are a few other options.

One option that is often touted as a way around getting specific insurance for an expensive item it adding it to your household home insurance. This can work, but there are 3 key drawbacks to doing this.

1. Usually house insurance policies have a FAR higher excess fee than any specific insurance policy, often £150 or more.

2. If you make an insurance claim (albeit relatively small) for your iPhone on your home insurance, your house insurance premium will likely be more expensive next year. It will go through the roof…

3. How long would you like to be without your iPhone? You might expect it to be a long while for your house insurance to process a claim. Household insurers have been known to take weeks to solve a claim. Most customers cannot accept to wait weeks for their phone to be replaced. Are household insurers experts at replacing phones?

Would you go to get your teeth fixed in a general hospital? Most likely not. You would go to the specialist - the expert - the dentist. Similarly, it might be a wise move to use an expert insurance firm to insure your iPhone.

This all leaves the question - What specialist insurer is there, that protects you and your iPhone with a proper level of cover AND is cost effective?

Let's look at what 'cost-effective' is:

The iPhone is only available on the O2 network. You can get an unofficial iPhone, which has been unlocked, to work on other networks, but lets look at the official picture.

If you needed to get a replacement iPhone then the only real way to do it is to buy a Pay As You Go iPhone from O2 which is about £360. If you are on contract you are still going to have to pay the monthly line rental costs.

So you would need some kind of replacement to justify spending the £35+ monthly line rental each month.

So any insurance that would get you a replacement iPhone for a considerable amount less than £360 is cost-effective. Ideally it needs to be as low cost as possible, but equally obviously, there is going to be some cost involved in the replacement.

You would then also want to consider what situations you want the insurance to protect you from - what level of cover do you need? iPhone theft is probably the most obvious possibility, but do you want to be protected if you simply lose your iPhone? Or if your iPhone is damaged? Do you need cover while you are abroad? Do you need extended waranty (ie if the iPhone simply stops working or malfuntions after the 12 month statutory manufacturer's warantee)?

You need to think about this before you spend any money on what you think is 'insurance' for you iPhone - but actually might not be adequate protection. You could be paying for only one of these levels of cover.

A quick search on Google at www.google.co.uk will show you what your options are. And almost all roads lead to an iPhone Insurance product underwritten by Equity Redstar.

According to the their webpage, it does offer cover for loss, theft, damage, water damage, international cover, fraudulent calls once stolen and extended waranty, which pretty much covers all the possibilities you might want covered.

Wherever you chose to get your iPhone Insurance from, one thing is clear - once you have got you iPhone and you start to realise what a great piece of kit it is, you are probably going to want to protect it with some kind of insurance that protects you - just make sure you get an expert to provide your iPhone insurance.