When to insure your tech gear

I’ve never been a knee-jerk purchaser of warranties or insurance for tech gear. This may have something to do with the fact that I’ve never broken a laptop or a phone, and I’m pretty good at fixing stuff myself. Mostly, however, it is because the cost of a warranty is often a significant percentage of the purchase price, and when I buy an item, I do a little mental math to determine whether a warranty is worth it.

More often than not, I decide I’m better off putting the cost of the warranty toward the cost of a possible replacement item instead. Recently, however, I’ve found my mental math has been missing one key variable: the Klutz Factor of the human using the gear.

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Because I have a low K Factor, my basic calculation works well for me. But this hasn’t translated to calculations that involve my son, who has a frighteningly high K Factor — one that has resulted in notable losses.

My son is a tech-happy teen. He loves his gear. But in the last month alone, he has destroyed two cell phones and an almost-new laptop. One of the cell phones didn’t last through the first month of its month-to-month plan. And when I say destroyed, I mean it. These units were completely irreparable: smashed screens, parts all over the place, exposed electronic guts, water immersion (sometimes all on the same unit). Is he particularly hard on gear because he is young, I wondered? Or is the human with a high K Factor more common than I thought?

I asked Aaron Cooper, director of marketing for the Worth Ave Group, which insures laptops and cell phones.

“Maybe some people don’t break stuff,” he offered, “but I do. And the people who file claims with us certainly do. I have recently gone through three iPhones. One got stolen. I dropped the others. Yesterday I came very close to running over yet another with my car.”

Judging from the stories he told about claims, I’d guess there are many accident-prone people who should probably be (and obviously are) using the K Factor when deciding on warranties and insurance.

“We had a claim yesterday where someone ran over a brand-new iPad,” said Cooper. “He was leaving on a trip and got a few blocks from his house and realized he’d forgotten the iPad. So he went home to get it. It was in the driveway, and he ran right over it. We have had children — and adults — throw up on phones. We get lots of toilet phones. (Usually this is women. Though I don’t know why.) And one woman backed into her TV and broke the screen with her … um … behind.”

My son’s laptop did, in fact, have a warranty from SquareTrade with the “drop and spill” upgrade, so that was covered. It turned out to be a good thing: The laptop could not be repaired, but within a week of filing the claim, I had a check for the purchase price. I’m now debating if I should buy him another laptop to replace the broken one — or is that just cruelty to objects?

Cooper suggests that I consider insurance instead of a warranty for my accident-prone teen next time. (Well, of course he would. He’s in the insurance business.) He points out, though, that the terms apply for the duration of the policy, so it would still cover the new one if I replace this broken laptop. I could also insure my son’s phone for a small fee — though I don’t know why anyone would insure someone who breaks phones so brutally and often.

I went to the Worth Ave Group’s website to see what insurance on the replacement laptop would set me back. According to the quick-quote tool, insuring a new laptop for $500 for one year would cost $42. (The warranty I bought when I got him the now-broken one cost about $120 for two years, but it expired with the laptop.) I picked up a discount code at PromotionalCodes.com and brought the price of that insurance quote down by 10 percent (to $38.30.) To add his cell phone to that plan would cost another $10.

That seems like a good solution. I might even let him have another phone and laptop with this knowledge in hand.

Whatever I decide about replacing his laptop, though, I have to change my “buy protection or not” mental math. When I’m estimating a purchase for myself, I assume I’ll be able to manage to hold onto the gear and keep it in working order for at least a year. When I’m buying for my son, I now know to assume a 100 percent chance that he will break it within a few months. Once I add in the K Factor, the results of my “should I buy protection” calculation are very different. I will always get some sort of gear coverage for him.

For myself? I might insure the rather expensive superlight laptop I like to bring everywhere because I’ll be heartbroken if I have to replace it with a budget machine.

I might even be a little reassured by Copper’s insurance-company perspective on how many people have a high K Factor. But it seems as if being both someone who tends to break things and who pours over insurance claims on a regular basis might give him a bit of a skewed perspective.

So I will ask you the same question I asked Cooper: What is the most embarrassing or ridiculous way you — or someone you know — has destroyed tech gear? Cooper cited a college kid who — in his insurance claim — said he had gotten “really drunk” and threw up on his iPhone. When he woke up in the morning, it no longer worked. Clearly, that guy needs insurance.

How about you?

Got gripes? Send them to christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com.

This story, “When to insure your tech gear,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Christina Tynan-Wood’s Gripe Line blog at InfoWorld.com.