Worth Ave. Insurance

[Jeremy8000]

Anyone ever used Worth Ave. Insurance? I'm not a fan of the carrier insurance policies, which are pretty expensive over time and maintain a large deductible, usually covering claims with a refurbished unit.

Looks like the only thing they don't cover is lost devices, and insurance for the Nexus 6 looks pretty inexpensive - $69 for a year with a $50 deductible.



What appears to be the best part is that, unlike any other cellphone insurance I've seen, their method of handling an approved claim is to issue a check for replacement value (which, per below, looks like it would be based on Google Play retail pricing of the Nexus 6 (or whatever replaces it)). Worth noting, though, that unlike other insurance that typically send you out a replacement phone overnight or at worst a couple of days, they only process claim checks once/week.

How do you determine replacement cost for my property?

Replacement cost is determined by your licensed adjuster. Your adjuster will research the make and model of the item stolen or damaged and award you with the corresponding replacement value of the same or similar model at current market value. For example, if a 30 gigabyte iPod® Classic is stolen, it would be replaced with a value for the current 160 gigabyte iPod® Classic available through Apple.com (source)

Anyone out there that might be able to speak to 'real world' experience in filing a claim with them?

 

[srkmagnus]

I've never heard of that company before. Has it been around long?Square Trade is a other alternative to the carrier offered insurance companies. Let us know if you decide on going with Worth Ave, or if you have information to share through your research on the company.

 

[Jeremy8000]

I've never heard of that company before. Has it been around long?Square Trade is a other alternative to the carrier offered insurance companies. Let us know if you decide on going with Worth Ave, or if you have information to share through your research on the company.

Didn't know anything about them till I started looking into options online. BBB gives them an 'A' rating since 2010, so they're not completely new and have to at a minimum be very good about resolving complaints when they're legitimate.

Looking around at forum reviews, there are certainly some negatives (but that's generally true for any insurance company - people generally aren't as likely to take time to praise good service as they are to vent about bad, and much of the 'bad' was regarding their not covering lost equipment).

It does look like their approval process and time to actually process a check might be considerably longer, this site claiming it can take 3-6 weeks. Even then, if they're fair about claims, I could deal with that if it meant I could just go out and purchase a direct replacement (or put that money towards a different model, if I wanted) with the funds to follow.

 

[BlueGoldAce]

I had worthave on a macbook pro once.

Cancelled it after a year. The macbook pro was damaged....and they wouldn't take a genius bar recommendation for the repair. They wanted it shipped to their own third party, and said that I would get money for a "comparable" machine...which if that referred to a refurbished once, that fine....but they said it could also be based on a windows computer with the same hardware.

Anyway, I cancelled it and got a prorated refund.

Places like squaretrade seems like a better deal. I don't tend to keep phones for a long period of time (though the nexus 6 may change that)...so I do their $5 a month plan.

 

[srkmagnus]

Jeremy, that's good to hear. Well, let us know how things go.

BlueGoldAce, I hear good things about Squaretrade. I currently use the carrier provided insurance plan on Sprint. It's not the cheapest, but it's been good to me in the past when I needed to file a claim. It does get pricey considering the month to month, then out of pocket deductible. But it's fairly hassle free.