You know the drill, you have a jerb interview so you buy the missus a Tesco Value iron for £6 so she can iron your suit and they ask if you want to buy product protection for £15 for six years or whatever. This happens with pretty much everything that's got a plug on it and I've wondered now and then whether it's worth it. Does anyone actually do this?
Do you buy "extra product protection"?
- Thread starter Diddums
- Start date
Caporegime
- Joined
- 11 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 32,250
- Location
- Leafy Cheshire
Buy larger items from John Lewis or Richer Sounds and get 5/6 years, otherwise who cares, if it blows up after a year just buy a new one.
The only times I've ever bought it:
SquareTrade warranty for a nexus 7 tablet, as we had a toddler. We subsequently broke the screen twice and had it replaced twice under warranty, which would have cost significantly more than the warranty.
Washing machine... after it had already broken after owning it for 2 years. I called them up about the cost of a repair and they said I could take out the repair plan for the next year and get a guaranteed fix. It took them about 4 visits and various attempts at buying spare parts to fix it so I think we probably saved some money on calling out someone else.
Otherwise I would never take out these things.. you could almost certainly spend enough on warranties to just replace the products that break over again in many cases.
SquareTrade warranty for a nexus 7 tablet, as we had a toddler. We subsequently broke the screen twice and had it replaced twice under warranty, which would have cost significantly more than the warranty.
Washing machine... after it had already broken after owning it for 2 years. I called them up about the cost of a repair and they said I could take out the repair plan for the next year and get a guaranteed fix. It took them about 4 visits and various attempts at buying spare parts to fix it so I think we probably saved some money on calling out someone else.
Otherwise I would never take out these things.. you could almost certainly spend enough on warranties to just replace the products that break over again in many cases.
Last edited:
This is what I was wondering about too.
Not sure how relevant, but we ordered a new sofa recently from the place that always has a sale on and we opted for the extra protection as it made little difference to the finance costs. Whether it's worth it or not we'll see, but for electricals I rarely take the cover as my home insurance covers most things.
How does insurance cover it? Isn't insurance for loss or damage rather than something breaking down?
I don't take the extra protection. For electrical goods they will usually either fail quickly (covered by standard warranty) or work for years. Just buy from places like John Lewis with their much longer warranty.
I don't take the extra protection. For electrical goods they will usually either fail quickly (covered by standard warranty) or work for years. Just buy from places like John Lewis with their much longer warranty.
Likewise - we had a cat and a toddler when we got our last sofa (we now have 3 cats and a slightly bigger child
), was ~10% extra to get their sofa care plan which included accidental structural/fabric damage (including stain protection), along with a cleaning kit for smaller stains. Seemed like a good idea at the time, given our love of coffee & red wine, and children/cats' love of spilling things 
I don't know about now, but currys ~15 or so years ago was great. Mini disc extra protection was next to nothing got two new devices and newer models out off it. For accidental damage, generally buy 2nd hand these days, so haven't had it recently.
Nope, never. Which really cheeses off the sales people, because some places make more on the extended warranties than they do selling the products.
Last instance was a washing machine (cost £239). AO wanted £6/month direct debit for their super-duper protection (racket). That's £72/year, and you have to start paying immediately.
So not only do you have to pay for the first two years which have a manufactuers guarantee anyway, within 3.5 years you've paid more than the cost of the machine. If you keep paying that into the 4th, 5th years (or longer), you've been completely ripped off.
So the only way you'd actually benefit, would be if the machine broke down between year 2 and year 3.5. That's a window of 1.5 years where having the cover would save you money in the event of a failure. Even then you only save money if a failure occurs, and that obviously is a gamble.
So in that case (and pretty much every other case I've seen), you're better off saving the money yourself.
e: even if your machine fails just after its 2nd anniversary, you only save £100. You've already spent £140 on the warranty payments. And if your machine fails after its 3rd anniversary, you've paid £210 in insurance payments, and saved only £20.
To my mind it's not only a con but an obvious con.
Last instance was a washing machine (cost £239). AO wanted £6/month direct debit for their super-duper protection (racket). That's £72/year, and you have to start paying immediately.
So not only do you have to pay for the first two years which have a manufactuers guarantee anyway, within 3.5 years you've paid more than the cost of the machine. If you keep paying that into the 4th, 5th years (or longer), you've been completely ripped off.
So the only way you'd actually benefit, would be if the machine broke down between year 2 and year 3.5. That's a window of 1.5 years where having the cover would save you money in the event of a failure. Even then you only save money if a failure occurs, and that obviously is a gamble.
So in that case (and pretty much every other case I've seen), you're better off saving the money yourself.
e: even if your machine fails just after its 2nd anniversary, you only save £100. You've already spent £140 on the warranty payments. And if your machine fails after its 3rd anniversary, you've paid £210 in insurance payments, and saved only £20.
To my mind it's not only a con but an obvious con.
Last edited:
Agree with this. It's the same as any insurance whatsoever. In one way it depends on the amount you stand to lose (consequence and likelihood) vs. how much it will cost to insure.
But on the other hand the amount you stand to lose vs. how much you can afford to lose also comes into it.
Hence almost everyone has home insurance, as even though the premiums might cost more than the average price to replace everything (multiplied by the likelihood of this happening), if you did get cleared out then you'd be ruined.
So for me there are 3 questions regarding should I get insurance/warranty etc.
1. Is it a legal requirement? (e.g. car insurance)
2. Is the cost of the premium higher or lower than the cost of replacement multiplied by the chances of having to replace it?
3. Is the cost of replacement more than I could manage?
Last edited:
Most also cover accidental damage, so you can easily make it, so you win everytime. While the bookie still wins on average.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 May 2011
- Posts
- 6,306
- Location
- Southampton
This is how companies such as Curry's make a large proportion of their money, selling the warranty services. It is solely for profit and not because newer tech products specifically need it.
With that in mind I very rarely go for it. I look after my gadgets anyway. Edit- pretty much what FoxEye said.
With that in mind I very rarely go for it. I look after my gadgets anyway. Edit- pretty much what FoxEye said.
My understanding is a lot of people mis-represent this 6 year rule as 6 years of warranty which it is not.
You have 6 years to make a claim on an item that goes faulty which does not include normal wear and tear..
But I believe after the first 6 months of owning said item its down to you to prove that the fault was inherit from day one..
quite happy to me corrected.