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Lawnmowers, the TyTN II and one odd insurance request

Posted on 13 Feb 2012 at 00:55

Paul Ockenden explores the curious case of HTC's TyTN and the lawnmower that destroyed it

"Very sadly Vodafone had no more TyTN IIs available, but it did offer me pretty much anything from its BlackBerry or smartphone ranges. I really wanted an HTC Touch HD but Vodafone wasn’t carrying that phone, so I settled on the Touch Pro2.

Despite the promise of next-day delivery the delivery, driver couldn’t even find the village so I had to wait another day for my new toy. But the Touch Pro2 is great so it was well worth it in the end!"

This is an interesting tale not just for that hilarious shredded smartphone picture, but also to see how relatively easy it was for Charles to get a new phone via his insurer.

It’s a fairly well-known fact that many big companies don’t have insurance for things such as simple damage and theft of kit, the theory being that insurance is actually a gamble and in most cases the odds are stacked against you, so if you can afford to cover the cost of replacing your phone you’ll (on average) end up paying less than if you paid for phone insurance.

But because it’s all about averages, you can actually play this game to your benefit: many phone insurance schemes offer just a single monthly price (Vodafone’s is around £7 per month) that doesn’t depend on the value of your handset, so whether it’s a very cheap and basic kid’s phone or a complex business smartphone the premium remains the same.

The insurance company has obviously based its calculation on the average value of lost phones. This means that although the “Don’t insure something you can afford to replace yourself” dictum is true in general, if you have a high enough valued phone it might be worth just thinking about the numbers.

How often, on average, do you damage or lose a phone? In my case, it’s probably once every three years. So with a premium of £7 per month, if I have a phone that would cost more than £252 (36 x 7) to replace I might find insurance a gamble worth taking.

Obviously, everyone’s case will be different, but it’s worth doing the sums before you tick the “no thanks” box when the website tries to sell you insurance along with your phone. Oh, and be careful when you’re mowing your lawn...

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