I always recommend getting a warranty through your insurance company. My wife got a surface pro, and in her hands I give it a 2 year half-life. We got a personal articles policy on it that is about 45$ a year, and it covers any situation except terrorism or government/cdc seizure. Those policies are a good read. Squaretrade was over 100$ a year and did not cover theft etc. Oh and no deductible. She broke the 60$ charger a few weeks ago and got a new one fully covered.
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Or you live in Europe and 2 years of warranty on new electronics is the law, not the premium.
Warranty and insurance are slightly different things. Warranty in Europe does not cover the cases where you brake something accidentally, for example.
Correct, but you will find that type of insurance is covered by general home and contents insurance. No need for device specific insurance.
It does in America? You buy something and if you break it "by accident", you get another one for free?
If you get that kind of insurance, then yes, you will. Most likely the 'insurance' company, like Squaretrade, will attempt a repair, though.
I've found it far cheaper to go with a rider on top of my renter's insurance than with a device-specific policy (and with better service, since they just deferred to the Apple Store re: repairs, vs making me send it to them like back when I had a computer-specific policy in 2007ish).
I've got my DSLR and my MBP covered for $60/year—I got it mainly for the camera, in case I dropped it in a lake or something, but it was cheap to throw the laptop on it too and then that saved my ass when I spilled water in it.
I don't know in which part of the EU you live in. I am from Germany and I can tell, there is no such thing as a 2 year warranty required by law.
What most people mix up is, that there are two different types of warranties. One that is given by the shop and the other one is given by the manufacturer.
The warranty given by the shop is required by law and is 2 years. It covers _only_ that the shop gave you a device without defects at the time you received it. After 6 month you as the customer has to prove, that a defect was there when you received the device, which is hard to prove.
The warranty by the manufacturer is a free given by the manufacturer. Apple give you a 1 year limited warranty. If something breaks during usage, than Apple will replace it within this 1 year.
That basically means, if something breaks between 1 year and 2 year, then you can't use the manufacturer warranty. You could try the by law required shop warranty. But then have luck in proving to the shop, that the defect was there when you bought it.
Either way you pay for it.
Not necessarily. Making extra units to replace broken ones (or spare parts to replace broken parts) is typically more expensive than simply making units or parts more durable so it makes the two year mark.
Also, insurance companies are not non-profits. They take a cut as well. The factory already makes a profit, but that's not going to increase simply because they have to lawfully offer two years of warranty. They'll have more costs but it probably wouldn't affect the profit margin as much as an insurance company would.
If a company doesn't even trust their own £800+ product to not develop a defect in under two years I don't think I want it.
If they make a solid product a manufactures warranty shouldn't cost them anything.
Yes, except that it's not really the case(not always). Personally, I come from a EU country where it is the law(Poland) so everything has to come with 2 years warranty, but living in the UK, it's really hard to exercise the 2 year warranty given by the EU law. Basically it protects you from manufacturing defects within those 2 years, if you buy a laptop with a 1-year warranty and a hard drive dies after 1.5 years it's still up to you to prove that it died because of manufacturing defect, which in all likelihood you won't be able to do.
Technically you have even longer rights if you're in the UK, at 6 years, where under the a Sale of Goods Act 1979, if a product was not fit for purpose you can send it back.
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/sale-of-go...
And the electronics cost much more...
Do they have complimentary lunch in Europe, too?
I cannot endorse this more - I bought an additional 3 yr everything-covered warranty on an Elitebook, and it ended up saving me $1100 in repairs to the laptop. Even Squaretrade warranties are better than nothing.
Perhaps I am just lucky but I out of principle never buy any insurance if it is not required by law. If something breaks I either try to fix it myself or buy a new one. I never calculated it but I don't feel that I miss out or pay more in the long run. Quite the opposite, I have almost no running expenses and can invest the money others pay the insurence companies into new stuff.
The only exception of that rule are insurances which cover stuff I might accidentally do to other people.
> Perhaps I am just lucky but I out of principle never buy any insurance if it is not required by law. If something breaks I either try to fix it myself or buy a new one.
Insurance companies know the odds better than us, they set the premiums, and they still manage to make a profit every year (billions of dollars in lots of cases)
It glaringly obvious that "on average" the average person should not get insurance when not required, because otherwise you're just paying for the profit of said insurance company.
No one is the average person. Even average people are not likely to be the average insured person. So it depends how much and in what direction you deviate from the mean.
For example, I kill cell phones regularly from dropping them; for me, insurance might be more cost effective; for the people who keep cell phones turned off except for emergencies it probably isn't good value. But, anecdotally I would say that these are the very people who have insurance. They are buying 'peace of mind', a very expensive product created by Madison Avenue.
I use a similar approach. The insurance companies are in business to make money, so (on average) they don't sell policies that lose them money.
I buy insurance if either:
1. I believe I'm significantly more likely to break the item then their estimates (ex: you use your phone at your construction job, and are significantly more likely to break it).
2. It's enough money that it would cause significant problems for me (home insurance, renters insurance, etc).
Otherwise, I figure I am 'self-insuring', and will come out ahead over the long term.
> The insurance companies are in business to make money, so (on average) they don't sell policies that lose them money.
Not necessarily. Insurance companies on average lose money from policies and make it up by investing the float. Think of the money they lose on policies as the "interest" that you get paid for lending them your premiums.