Do you buy "extra product protection"?

I got Applecare when I got my iPhone 6. I was buying it outright and decided that after spending that amount of money I'd prefer to get some extra cover with it.

A few months back I had a pushy salesman in a large chain electrical retailer that I won't name trying to get me to take out a extended warranty plan on a printer/scanner. The thing was only costing me £35. For that price I don't care if it fails after 12 months. I was only buying it because it was £2 cheaper than replacement ink cartridges for my old one, plus it has wifi which the old one didn't.
 
enigma27 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.
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It's also what the court would deemed a "reasonable time" and for what product.

If say you bought a super duper HiFi for £20,000 and it died after 2 years and 2 weeks you can no doubt can argue it is reasonable that something of that value should last more than 2 years and 2 weeks.

If however you bought a £5 kettle and it died after 2 years and 2 weeks. Good luck succeed in making that claim.

It's done on a case by case basis.
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
Depends what it is. I know some people that treat it as a bit of an upgrade package as they will get one that covers it for accidental damage and then break it in the last year so they get a new item of whatever it is.
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ohhh good thinking......brb, tv in the living room is about to have an accident!

jk, never bought extended warranties - almost always a rip off. for things like phone/tablets/laptops etc there are plenty of third party insurers that are much cheaper. home insurance for everything else
 
Hades said:
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.
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My home insurance covers faults with things out of warranty ;)
 
Everything is on my home insurance (Nationwide). I have claimed once in 10 years and it was hassle free. The only thing I didn't opt to cover was redundancy, but when I did get made redundant, Nationwide allowed me to freeze their mortgage to interest-only until I got a new job.
 
Glaucus said:
Most also cover accidental damage, so you can easily make it, so you win everytime. While the bookie still wins on average.
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And the honest person will lose out significantly.


FoxEye said:
AO wanted £6/month direct debit for their super-duper protection (racket). That's £72/year, and you have to start paying immediately.
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I remember their sales aggressive sales tactics well... No thanks.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
Everything is on my home insurance (Nationwide). I have claimed once in 10 years and it was hassle free. The only thing I didn't opt to cover was redundancy, but when I did get made redundant, Nationwide allowed me to freeze their mortgage to interest-only until I got a new job.
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Is that as standard with their mortgage deals? Sounds unusual for a bank!

The only warranties I've taken out were for a washing machine at £5 a month and a phone at £10 a month. The washing machine lived for several years before I sold it as fully working (cancelled the warranty after about a year and a bit). The phone broke 3 times, first 2 were covered under warranty, the 3rd was supposedly my own fault (cracked screen after dropping it 1.5 feet onto a carpet). I tried to call them out on bad design, but insurance picked it up in the end.
 
I'll buy extended warranties if the cost/benefit is reasonable. But most on generic policies, never.

^ think they call those 'payment holidays'.
 
I did years ago for my 1st laptop. Regretted for 1st year but then in next 2 years I had it repaired about 5 times. Only small things so not sure if it saved me money as such but it was nice to call them, having it picked up the next day and delivered fixed day or two later.
These days I don't bother. Though I think I got it on my TV for free cos couple of my mates were buying TVs at the same time so salesman gave it us (as well as some money off) for spending quite a bit of money between us.
 
Full disclosure

Dispute snagging it off, I do in fact have it on my washing machine because either washing machines are inherently unreliable, or I'm really good at breaking them.
 
new boy said:
Full disclosure

Dispute snagging it off, I do in fact have it on my washing machine because either washing machines are inherently unreliable, or I'm really good at breaking them.
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Just spent ages myself buying a new washing machine. I know people who go through a wm every year to two years, but they will only use the 15 min cycle.

Apparently this is bad both for your clothes and the wm itself. But people don't think about it. If the 15 min cycle was so brilliant why would the normal cycle take 2-3 hours? But anyway, apparently using the quick wash cycles is a great way to drastically shorten the life of a wm, as told by numerous repair guys.
 
almoststew1990 said:
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.
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Yep

DSG (Currys) were very close to going under a few years ago but the cashflow provided by those accidental cover direct debits kept them going.

They (and many retailers) are all about selling additional services / addons as the actual product can have very little profit in it.
 
I don't usually bother, but I have bought protection with my new TV.

It's from Curry's which offers all the usual breakdown warranty, as well as accidental.
£4 a month direct debit can be forgotten about.
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
Depends what it is. I know some people that treat it as a bit of an upgrade package as they will get one that covers it for accidental damage and then break it in the last year so they get a new item of whatever it is.
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Which would typically be classed as insurance fraud, whether or not the person would get taken to court and convicted over it.

I have bought extended warranty protection plans in the past, and some have paid off very well (I remember getting an upgrade from a cheap tape player to an expensive CD player for the cost of a mere £9.99). I don't tend to bother these days.

A general rule of thumb that a very rich 1%er from my company said on an internal mailing list regarding insurance was, "only buy insurance when you have to by law or if you would be bankrupted if the worst was to happen". This means definitely buy car insurance, home insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance, life insurance, etc, but do not buy extended warranty insurance, for example.

In the US, a number of credit/charge cards offer extended warranty protection as standard. These are typically Amex cards and select cards from other merchants like Chase. My credit card gives me an extra year beyond the manufacturer's warranty, up to three years.
 
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