Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN?

[NotJustAPhone]

part of the 2 year upgrade when you get a smartphone you have to get a data plan too which is $30 month minimum. I would say just get the insurance for peace of mind.

you could drop it and break it after a month of use and if you don't have insurance your out $800 if u want a new one. or have to upgrade another line and pay an extra $30 a month if they dont have data plan on them

and the GN will not be discontinued by next year... they're still selling the Nexus S

i got the best buy insurance which is $10 a month with no deductible but doesn't cover if its lost or stolen

If the OP loses or breaks his Nexus he can transfer and use an upgrade from one of his other lines on his family plan. No need to add a new data plan.

Two of my lines are flip phones for my parents and they're fine with their phones and haven't upgraded in years. Since they don't use them, I transferred one of their upgrades to my line and got a Nexus to replace my TBolt. If you have available upgrades that will not otherwise be used there is no need to pay for insurance.

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[xelhabb]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

I got my brand new GNex the day it was released, less than 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I was at a dinner party and cracked the screen. The phone still works fine but the crack goes in three directions with a nice chip at the epicenter. I friggen wanted to cry like a baby girl. Its all I could think about and it literally ruined my who evening.

The phone is $700+ to replace. I checked. Instead of plunking down another $700, I am paying $99 to get the phone replaced. The new model will be here tomorrow. An Otterbox case will not be far behind it as well.

You can do ALL the math you want and discuss outlay in the long term. But this is a brand new phone and If I did not have the insurance I would be spending $700+ in one shot rather than $99. For me, that's completely worth the $7 I pay monthly for the piece of mind of getting another phone sent to my door.

Consider that we generally do not live life in the long term. Day by day for normal affairs. Month to month as far a bill paying goes. Pay $7 a month and know if your phone get broken or stolen, you can spend $99 for another one sent to your door overnight. For me, its TOTALLY worth it.

 

[Stang68]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

The Galaxy Nexus is the first phone I've decided to get insurance on. I know I plan on keeping it for at least a year, so I figured I might as well pay the insurance to be able to get a new one if something catastrophic happens.

 

[Bob61]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

I got my brand new GNex the day it was released, less than 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I was at a dinner party and cracked the screen. The phone still works fine but the crack goes in three directions with a nice chip at the epicenter. I friggen wanted to cry like a baby girl. Its all I could think about and it literally ruined my who evening.

You can do ALL the math you want and discuss outlay in the long term. But this is a brand new phone and If I did not have the insurance I would be spending $700+ in one shot rather than $99. For me, that's completely worth the $7 I pay monthly for the piece of mind of getting another phone sent to my door.

I did my math a few weeks ago on how much I would have paid for insurance / warranty on my cell phones. In all the years I've owned a cell phone I've never had to replace one outside of the manufacturer's warranty. I calculated I would have paid nearly $5,000 over the years on all the phone I've had for me and my family. I still come out way ahead if I need to drop $700 on a new phone.

Always looking to get the best deal possible, I charged my phone to my AMEX credit card, it gives me 90 days protection on lost or damaged items so I would have been covered in this case. AMEX also extends my warranty by a year for free. You might want to look into getting an AMEX card (or other credit card with similar benefits).

It would be interesting to see if the phone would have been covered even if you didn't have the insurance.

 

[billr]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

For those of you considering insurance, check your homeowners or renters insurance company. I added a personal scheduled item (my Gnex phone) to my homeowners insurance (with Safeco) for just $38/year. It covers damage or loss (as in lost or stolen) with no deductible. They will replace the phone with a brand new one, or if it's no longer available, an equivalent or better phone.

 

[marcosv]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

If you can get a separate personal article insurance policy, that typically is the cheapest route. State Farm used to cover smartphones for $30/year. They don't anymore.

I would not recommend using your general homeowners or renters insurance for a smartphone claim. It's not how much you put on a claim that matters to an insurance company; it's how frequently you file a claim --- too many filings and you are high risk and they'll drop you when it comes time to renew.

Consider how much it'll cost you to replace your phone in a year to two years, now that Verizon no longer offers a one year plan. Looking at the Fascinate, it's around $300 on eBay. Someone spills water on your phone at dinner, you lose it, etc., just once and there goes all the money you saved by not having insurance. Now consider losing it twice in one year.

As for extended warranty: FWIW, my Droid X had to be replaced under warranty twice: the last one after the one year mark. I now have a "fresh" refurb DX to back up my Galaxy Nexus. Only thing is, I rather not ever go back to the DX...

 

[rcpa]

You don't have to replace the whole phone just because the screen breaks. The screen on my Thunderbolt broke and I replaced it for a total of $32 by buying a digitizer (the touch screen glass) from amazon. Replacing just the digitizer was more effort than I would do again, but replacing the digitizer and LCD screen together as a unit would have been an easy, 15 minute job and would have cost about $60. I could have sent it away to be repaired for about $100.

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[metsnfins]

that's what my co-worker has been doing for a while now...

according to multiple VZW employees that I spoke to...
as long as you don't drop the line that was upgraded,
you can drop the data package and swap a dumb phone
in its place. (at least this was allowed as of last month,
unless somethign changed) like I said, it can only be
done if the smartphone was purchased from Verizon
corporate store or Verizonwireless.com

You'll lose unlimited data

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[CBMC]

You'll lose unlimited data

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I don't think the op cared about (or had) unlimited data on the line they were buying the phone. I think they were just using a line that had a contract open to buy a new phone and then switching the phone to another line.

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[ihyln]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

I had a dinc1 that was dropped a dozen times at least but I had a case and a screen protector. I also paid insurance for a little over a year before I realized that having a decent case is a cheaper alternative. Of course no case will save you from losing your phone which I almost did on a second leg of an intercontinental flight but luckily I was able to get it back from the cleaning crew before the plane was pushed back from the gate.

That $200 can go towards a newer phone if something happens.

 

[MISTERTEE]

Re: Is this a good reason not to pay $7/month for insurance on GN

part of the 2 year upgrade when you get a smartphone you have to get a data plan too which is $30 month minimum. I would say just get the insurance for peace of mind.

you could drop it and break it after a month of use and if you don't have insurance your out $800 if u want a new one. or have to upgrade another line and pay an extra $30 a month if they dont have data plan on them

Not true.

You can upgrade one of the other lines, get the Nexus then call Verizon and swap the phones around so that your line has the new nexus and the original non smartphone that was on the line you just upgraded is assigned to that line once again.. Once you move a non smartphone back onto that line the $30 data plan will not be required. I have a friend that sells cell phones and she keeps 2 active lines all the time that are 1 year apart. That way she is eligible for an upgrade every year. Once she gets the new phone she just assigns a basic phone to that line which drops it back down to $10 a month.