Slashdot Mirror
Owners Smash iPhones To Get Upgrades, Says Insurance Company
markass530 writes "An iPhone insurance carrier says that four in six claims are suspicious, and is worse when a new model appears on the market. 'Supercover Insurance is alleging that many iPhone owners are deliberately smashing their devices and filing false claims in order to upgrade to the latest model. The gadget insurance company told Sky News Sunday that it saw a 50-percent rise in claims during the month Apple launched the latest version, the iPhone 3GS.'"
how about linking to the original article instead of a blog entry attempting to get page views by copying chunks of the article?
5 seconds in a microwave is about all it takes for pretty much anything with a circuit board that will fit inside.
Casca
AT&T makes money off forced "upgrading."
I had a flip-phone model. Had it die on me (internal speaker died, would only work in speakerphone mode). Called in my warranty, got the "replacement"... it's a SLIDE-phone instead of flip (meaning the screen is unprotected).
Called them up, turns out they have a clause in the contract to ship back whatever the fuck phone it is they can with "similar features" if yours is out of production... and the lines go "out of production" every 6 months.
Where do they make the money? Constantly changing accessories. Car charger? Bam. No good. Extra house charger I kept at work? Bam. No good. Belt clip? Bam, no good. Thank god I hadn't bought the "proprietary" handsfree set too.
$100 worth of accessories, down the tube, "not covered" simply because they ship a different model phone incompatible with the accessories you bought right along with the damn phone in the first place.
Amen. I've got an iPhone 3G which is running slower and slower, even after restoring to factory defaults. It's a known problem too, judging by the number of people posting in the forums. Of course, when you call with your complaint, you'll enter a useless road of drones that ask you to restore it, contradict you and say nothing's wrong, threaten you that sending in your device will take two months, etc. etc. I can see why people would get frustrated and upset and eventually kill the POS.
[ Please people, don't reply with good advice, I'm not asking for it. ]
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Car insurance is based on the value of the vehicle being replaced. Home owners or Renters insurance will replace items from your home with the current model.
I had a break in at my apartment while my wife and I were at the theater. We lost about $2000 worth of electronics. After deductible, we had $1500 left, of which they only paid $900 in cash as the items were depreciated. Now, if we used that money to buy replacement items of the current model, we got the full, undepreciated value back in return (so $1500 back if we replaced every item on the list). The problem with electronics is that they become obsolete quickly, and are not available for purchasing the same model.
We bough the same brand of laptop at an identical price point as the original and got the full value of the item. This was replacing a 1.6ghz P4 and 512 mb ram with a 2ghz core duo and two gigs of ram. We also got a 10 megapixel camera to replace our old 6 mp (same price point). Xbox was no longer available new, so the "current" model was an Xbox360. Yes, that is what we got as a replacement.
All in all, we only had to come out of pocket about $300 to replace our laptop, xbox, camera (didnt replace the second camera, as there was no need), xbox games, and SD card. Considering most of our electronics were over two years old, getting all of these upgrades at retail cost would have been much more prohibitive. Its about the only positive thing that happened from the robbery (other than having no cash or keepsakes stolen, and no one was home to get hurt).
this is best done with a 9v (et al.) battery and some wires...randomly touching every contact interface. Looks fine on the outside, the ICs just fry.
THL phish sticks
i have insurance for ALL device on my person carte of a rider on my homeowners insurance. There's a $100 deductible (per incident, not per device), and it covers loss, theft, accidental, and incidental damage. It covers me, my wife, anything in our cars, and anything a 3rd party has on them while they're with us so long as they're "staying with us" for the night. (for example, and this was the specific example they gave: my parents come to stay for the holidays, and we go out to dinner. While out, seeing a movie, my car is broken into and Dad's camera and laptop are stolen. HIS stuff is covered by my insurance. Same goes if we're mugged. If I drop his DSLR trying to take a picture, also covered).
It costs me about $45 a year for this rider on my policy. it has a $10,000 per incident coverage, and $25,000 annual maximum. (default is much less, but I'll regularly travel with 2 laptops, a media device, a few phones, and several cameras, so i could easily have 10K worth of gear in my car).
This is an extension of the electronics rider on the policy, which bumped my home electronics coverage from $5k to 25K of covered items, which itself cost about $14 a year more, and I added the accidental/incidental clause for a bit more. (note to all you with homeowners insurance, the default electronics and appliance coverage likely does not even cover your fridge, washer, dryer, water heater, AC, heater, etc, let alone your TV, stereo, computers, devices, and more. Without this rider, those each need to be itemized with your insurer, or if you burn down or take a bad lightning strike, you'll be left holding the bag for the difference! Talk to your insurer and make you everything is not only covered, but covered for COMPERABLE OR BETTER REPLACEMENT, most only covers depreciated value, which is worthless! Talk to your insurer and make sure you have an electronics rider!!!)
I buy warranties on most devices, and always pay for at least $10 of the device using my Visa card as well (even when financed otherwise), so I get the additional 1 year warranty extension from them. However, the additional coverage for loss and damage is WELL worth it. I regularly get devices replaced within the 3-5 year terms. In fact, I've not bought a printer/fax in nearly 10 years thanks to BestBuy, but i get a new one about every 18-24 months and buy a new $29 warranty on it.
I've had 2 cases where I used the insurance. One time I was bumped at a trade show, and destroyed a several hundred dollar lens on my camera, filed a report and had the cash in a few days. The other time, my was a car wreck that destroyed a laptop. I've never used it for "malicious" purposes, but I did get IN WRITING from my provider that I was in fact covered for "fits of anger" though i was cautioned that frequent use of that clause could get my insurance dropped. However, since I'm using home insurance on 2 houses, 2 cars, multiple rider policies, and some additional coverage, all from the same company, odds are the near $3500 a year I pay them is keeping them happy enough to replace a few minor devices if I chose to.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Oh here's a link to the policy:
http://supercoverinsurance.com/terms.php
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
"I buy warranties on most devices, and always pay for at least $10 of the device using my Visa card as well (even when financed otherwise), so I get the additional 1 year warranty extension from them." Whenever I've had to make a claim on my Visa for extended warranty protection (Harmony remote, laptop, external HDD) they require that you pay in FULL with the credit card. On one item I had used a $25 gift card plus my Visa and they almost didn't cover any of it. I had to prove to them that the $25 card was from Visa reward point redemption. After that they deducted the gift card amount from the total reimbursible expense. I don't see your $10 rule working unless you have a special Visa card that most people don't have access to. I now make a point to not use gift cards for expensive items that may need replaced. Better to use them for consumables or media.
And I saw a bull SERVICING a cow the other day, too. The fraud is in the misrepresentation of the risk/benefit of being part of the "risk pool". In short, if you buy the insurance every time, you lose in the long run unless a ridiculously high number of products which you buy fail. If you don't get the insurance, then you win overall unless, again, a ridiculously high number of products which you buy fail. Salesmen prey on the fact that people, as a whole, are demonstrably bad at assessing real risk.
Clearly, you are not an actuary or even remotely close to one. What you describe is what many misguided consumers of insurance contracts believe is the mechanism of insurance pricing.
Insurance is very tightly regulated. All rate filings must be approved by the appropriate state regulators, and there are standardized procedures in place to calculate rates. It is also a very competitive industry. If what you claim were actually true, it would be trivial for a competitor to offer a lower rate for the same risk, in essence outpricing others in the market. Insurance is one of the easiest products for consumers to switch vendors--you can simply shop around for a lower price and cancel your existing policy once you find a better deal. You can't really do that for a tangible product--if you've used your PS3 and decide you don't like it, you have to find someone else to sell it to (and usually at a lower price) if you want a Wii instead.
The size of a book of business can help or hinder the cost to the insureds in that book. A large book enables the insurer to obtain more credible data, and may permit more sophisticated pricing structures. The insurer is then able to segment the book more precisely, and more accurately determine the extent of the risk. This in turn permits the underwriters to establish better selection criteria, further reducing the premium on policyholders with the lowest risk. However, a large book can be problematic if the rating structure is flawed--the impact of an unprofitable book can go so far as to risk the insurer's solvency. Furthermore, smaller or more specialized insurers often have less overhead and loss adjustment expenses, which enables more competitive pricing.
One of the biggest problems of insurance is that too many people think like you, and not enough people actually understand the insurance mechanism. Nobody likes to pay for insurance until they actually need it. Too few people actually read their policy and the contract provisions. Too many are selfish bastards who think that as long as they get theirs, everyone else can screw themselves, which is why fraud is so rampant. Too many insureds think their policy is a catch-all and operate under the assumption that they can be less vigilant now that losses are on the insurer's dime, which is why auto accidents are so common and premiums are so high. Risk pooling is great only until everybody gets it in their heads that they can rely on someone else to bail out their bad behavior.
A properly-run insurance company has no vested interest in denying legitimate claims on the basis of retaining profit. Why? Because (1) if the product is priced correctly, then the provision to pay has already been made; (2) loss adjustment expenses can easily exceed the claim amount; (3) the reputation of the insurer as a good-faith actor is damaged; (4) reinsurance exists for catastrophic claims; (5) the insurer risks complaints to the DOI, which can result in extremely costly investigations and possible revocation of the insurer's right to issue policies in that state; and (6) greater than expected losses are factored into the actuarial calculations, resulting in higher rate need.