Asurion Insurance Experience

In all the years (14 plus) that I have owned a cell phone or cell phones, this is the first time that I have had to replace a phone through an insurance claim.  I only have insurance on two of the four phones that are on my account, but I selected these two due to high cost of replacing one and the high risk of damage to the other.  The phone with high risk of being damaged was indeed the phone that needed to be replaced.  It it the phone that is in the possession of my daughter and it was damaged fairly early into the contract.  Replacing the phone without insurance would have cost a bundle, but with the Asurion coverage it was only $50.

I have to say that I was pleased with the experience.  I used Asurion’s online claim system to file my claim, which was approved quickly.  The phone was shipped by Asurion that day, although their choice of DHL should be reconsidered in my opinion (see earlier posts about DHL).

When the phone arrived, I simply followed the directions in the box for activating the phone and the phone was up and running.  The total amount of time that I invested into this phone replacement was about 20 minutes total.  I have no complaints about the service that I received from Asurion.

I will comment about insurance for cell phones.  Before you purchase this service you should investigate how much it is going to cost you to replace your cell phone.  On the Verizon system, the cost of the insurance is $5 per month or $60 per year.  Replacing the phone will cost you $50.  So if you break the phone on the 12th month of your contract, your total cost would be $110.  Generally, this is cheaper than replacing the phone by purchasing a new one.  Also keep in mind that once you reach the time at which you can do an upgrade, it is definitely not in your best interest to keep the insurance, because you can get a free or greatly reduced cost replacement directly from Verizon in this case.