Use our UK Finance guide and learn by experience. We outline pitfalls so that you don't have to learn the hard way, as many of us often do.
Insurance
Phone Insurance
Probably the most underutilised of all insurance products in the U.K. is phone insurance, and considering the cost involved in replacing a handset when no mobile phone insurance UK policy is held, this is a worrying fact. Less than 30% of handsets are covered by phone insurance and whilst most people think that their householders insurance policy will cover them in the event of damage to or loss of their mobile phone, there is only a 20% chance of this being so.
The importance of cell phone insurance.
When you sign a 12 month contract with a service provider, you are promising them a full year's worth of business, and for this they are prepared to subsidise the cost of your handset. If you don't have phone insurance and your mobile is damaged, lost or stolen, you will have to foot the bill of replacing it and this can be extremely costly. A handset that costs £9.99 to purchase at the time of signing a contract, and is not covered by cell phone insurance , will cost you in the region of £200.00 to replace, should the need arise. Having said this, the latest handsets on the market can cost as much as £1000.00 – not an expense you want to have to deal with if you have no mobile phone insurance UK. To make matters worse, if you hold no phone insurance policy and cannot afford to replace your handset, you will still have to pay your monthly subscription fees in terms of your legally binding contract.
How to acquire a phone insurance policy.
There are countless phone insurance providers in the market today, and most contract phone retailers will either try to sell you their own phone insurance product, or that of a company with whom they are affiliated. However, by shopping online will you be able to gain a clearer picture of the various types of phone insurance products on offer and will almost certainly be able to find a more comprehensive, and possibly more cost effective mobile phone insurance UK policy than that offered to you at the point of sale. A lot of cell phone insurance companies will offer you cover from as little as '£3.00' a month or '10p' a day. Realistically though, these companies will not provide you with the same sort of protection as phone insurance providers whose costs are a little higher up the scale.
Read your terms and conditions.
The single most important tactic you can use when signing a phone insurance policy is to read the terms and conditions of the policy - CAREFULLY. According to call centre employees, the reason why most customers phoning them become enraged is because they simply do not have the level of cell phone insurance cover that they thought they had, and this can be attributed to the fact that they chose to listen to what the sales assistant was telling them instead of taking the time out to go through the terms and conditions themselves. A sales assistant will always tell you that you will be covered in every eventuality – they are salespeople, they work on commission, they want to make the sale! Points to look out for when scrutinising the terms and conditions of a phone insurance policy include excess clauses, how easy the claims process appears to be, how comprehensive the mobile phone insurance UK policy is (i.e. look out for exclusions relating to water damage, accidental damage, etc.), whether or not you will be covered when travelling abroad and what sort of level of unauthorised calls will be covered in the event of theft. There are other points to be wary of, but by shopping online and doing a little bit of comparative analysis, you will quite easily be able to identify the more beneficial phone insurance policies available to you.
Summary.
Phone insurance is a product on its own and if you look carefully, you will find that other types of insurance policies that are prepared to include some sort of phone insurance clause, will not actually provide you sufficient cover, especially in the event of an occurrence not usually covered by specific phone insurance policies which are fully comprehensive. So, buying phone insurance as a separate product can offer you more protection, but it can also do this at less cost. The bottom line is, never underinsure anything as you're just wasting hard-earned money, and always make sure you're getting as much value for your Pounds as possible.
