I've been going back and forth on this for my new Skyrocket, and I figured I'd add in my opinion..
I own several SquareTrade warranties on other devices, going back over 5yrs, including 3 other android phones. Have filed 1 claim before and it was painless and taken care of in about 3 days (refund of full purchase price). Shippings free, their customer support is good, and they're are a fairly large/backed up company that I do not worry if they would "honor" just about any claim i'd throw at them.
Having said that, their prices have gotten a bit ridiculous... The last android phone plan I bought was about a year ago. It was their standard 2yr w/ ADH, except it had no deductible. Up until recently, only iPhones had the 100$ deductible. Once you include this into the pricing it get's a bit unreasonable... It's also worthy to note you only get to claim up to 500$ worth of damage then you've "fullfilled" the warranty contract allottment and it's no longer valid. A+ BBB accredited.
AT&T's mobile insurance used to be more reasonably priced as well (deductible wise - monthly wise it's still 7$/mo)... They recently introduced a 3rd tier dedcutible, which brings the newest smart phones up to a 199$ deductible charge for a ADH type claim (cheaper android phones often still fall under the 50$ deductible which makes it reasonable). It's also good to note you can only have 2 claims per year (but you can always cancel the remainder of that years monthly insurance to save you a few bucks afterwards). They also won't insure phones that you don't get through them. They do however - cover stolen/lost phones, which is something SquareTrade will not. About half the time I've used AT&T claims in the past, they've shiped a BNIB or a Refurb phone - so there's no telling what you might get as a replacement.
Ensquared is 99$ up front, with a 75$ deducitble, covering phone/damage up to 1000$. It also covers lost/stolen phones (something I don't understand why square trade doesn't yet). It sounds pretty good, but the fact is it's not nearly as popular/known as ST or your carrier's plans, and one can justifiably be aprhensive about needing to rely on it. About Bob's conversation with the chat rep : I would not really look into the changing website as a sign of being "sketch". It's hard to tell what they changed - but if it's just the "Extended Warranty Coverage - No" - then that can probably be reasonably explained as a typo. And it was brought to their attention at somepoint and a request put in for a site manager to alter it, I'm sure it wasn't purposely being done "on the fly" as you were talking to them just to try to convince you to buy it. Changes like that usually don't happen so instaneously unless most of their techs are in-house fulltime. I'm not exactly sure what the "extended warranty coverage" even is - but it sounds like a time extension off your current warranty, IE +1yr on whatever warranty you have now? Either way, the pricing, and other advertising/blah blah text changes are all quite normal, and perhaps they just don't have a good enough change control process to not screw something up and have to go back and change/fix it a few days later (happens with most companies). It's also likely since it's a newer company and possibly still in an active design stage that a lot of quirks are to be expected. Like the closing html comment in a php comment at the bottom left of this page
2 Year Phone Insurance- Smartphone
lol.. I have also looked through several threads for reviews and I didn't come across anyone with a claim processing problem with them though. Noting on the website issues, general layout, display of legal information, etc etc : they do seem like a more "amateur" company that still has a lot of room to grow to give off the "big boy" appearance of ST, that doesn't necessarily implicate poor service though, but is a bit of a turn off.. Backed by some "AM Best Rated Insurer" - that I unfortunately could not find details from on their/affiliates sites. A- BBB accredited.
GoCare - I've done little research on unfortunately. Their pricings are competitive - 119$ for 2yrs + 50$ dedcutible for android phones. They cover "data recovery" which no one else really does - but may not be important to a lot of people. "24hr turn around" time seems on par with everyone else, but it makes me question why they would have a need to offer a "loaner phone" if service was really that quick. They have some special family plan discounts too. A- BBB accredited.
SquareTrade :
124 + 99 = 223$ for 1 claim. If you use their current -35$ promo or their monthly 30$ promo's it helps some.. 188$ for 1 claim
ATT :
(7 x 24) + 199 = 367$ for 1 claim.
Ensquared :
99 + 75 = 174$ for 1 claim.
Gocare :
119 + 50 = 169$ for 1 claim.
To be honest, you still need to weigh if you actually need an insurance plan... After receiving and repairing dozens of cell phones, I can tell you that:
Depending on what you do immediately afterwards if a phone is dropped in water - it has probably a 90% chance of survivng. Turn it off immediately, keep it off, dry it out completely before trying to turn it back on, clean it out if needed (depending on liquid).
If you drop it and your screen cracks - most phone digitizers cost anywhere from 25-100$, and are a breeze to replace. Also if you can deal with a decent rubber case, it'll reduce the odds of a drop destroying the phone.
Other random hardware failures not do to ADH events - are usually covered by the manufacturer for probably a year (although if you mod/root your phone - some manufacturers can be anal about covering afterwards). Either way random hardware failures are the least likely of problems and will most likely occur within 30 days of owning the phone.
Software issues - I don't know how the warranties deals with these because these are almost always user repairable - use google.
For my new Skyrocket - I'm still not 100% which way I'll go. I'm leaning towards ensquared - if i purchase anything at all. I figured I'd give a decent review and input on this thread, since their seemed to be some potentially unecessary aprehension against ensquared based off that convo.
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