Insuring mobile phones.

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Grizzly

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Each of my children have separate insurance on their mobile phones that seems quite expensive, they pay a few Euro each month added to their bills. It seems to me that I would be better off insuring these on our home insurance all risks policy. One quote I got came in at about €6 in total for 3 phones with a total value not in excess of €500. Any thoughts?
 
Do you really need to insure these at all? A new phone can cost as little as €50 these days (probably not the all singing, all dancing ones that some people would want of course) so to insure something of such low value seems like a waste of money. A few months of premiums saved up would cover most of the cost of a new one. Just buy a new one if the old one disappears.
 
I cancelled my mobile phone insurance for the reasons ClubMan outlines above over a year ago. I had originally took it out as I had damaged my previous phone, but there have been sveral warnings over the cost and benefits of such insurance in recent times.

If your home cover (contents) policies covers you for most risks associated with your phone you would be better off using that as cover (provided the added cost, if any, is not significant).

€6 per month is €78 per year, which would buy at least one replacement phone.
 
I would imagine your children want the all singing/dancing phone. TBH I find the mobile phone insurance with the mobile phone co. pointless - It costs about €5-€6 per month and there is an excess charge of ~€25. In the past it used to be quite easy to process a claim, however in recent years I found that unless it was stolen from a locked glove box/boot and you recorded the theft with the Gardaí, they weren't interested in processing your claim and cited "negligence!" Had to threaten to pull our account before claims were processed!
 
Worth noting that in certain T&Cs after a number of claims the cover is no longer valid yet they will offer to continue the insurance.

I believe the exact quote a friend got was...
"Would you like to have insurance on this handset? You won't be able to claim on this for 12 months, but its only €x per month".
I believe this is in relation to a number of claims over a certain timeframe (I believe he had three, all legit, claims in under a year).

As for the question from the OP, as long as you know exactly what your phone is/(and more importantly) isn't covered for it may make sense to transfer the insurance across if you have children similiar to my friend above (3 phones in one year). Do consider what the consequences of a claim will be on your overall insurance

If the total cost of the three is <€500 it could be worth just dropping the €6 cover and hope the phones aren't lost/damaged/stolen before the savings will cover the cost of a new phone.
 
I'd be reluctant to add this to my house insurance policy - if you do make a claim it could make it quite difficult to shop around for future quotes. Some companies operate a strict no claims policy - they won't be concerned whether your claim was for a €200 phone and simply won't quote.
 
Most home insurances have a much higher excess charge than €25.
Also the phone is insured for the value to replace the phone without the associated network discount that was/is part of purchasing a contract/prepaid/upgrade phone.
Thus phone I have insured is insured for €500 but I originally only paid €120 as an upgrade.
 
All good points. But just to clarify, the cost of insuring up to €500 worth of phones worked out at €6 per annum and not per month. Incidentally my adult children phones come with all the bells, singing, dancing and whistle attachments.
 
€6 per annum nearly seems to good to be true. I'd say that "terms and conditions apply". Read the small print on what and when you can claim very carefully.
 
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