AT&T iPhone insurance plans back on the market in U.S.

If you’re the type of person who prefers to insure your technology, buy extended warranties, or get caught up in money-making schemes, AT&T may have an offer you can’t pass up. Starting on July 17th AT&T will start offering standard insurance on all iPhone models for $4.99 per month.

Here’s the catch:

  • You’ll have to pay either a $50 of $125 deductible on each claim
  • Customers can enrol in the program within 30 days of new activation or upgrade
  • It will protect loss, theft, accidental physical or liquid damage, and mechanical or electrical failure.

Opinions regarding the usefulness of the insurance plan will surely be mixed by users. Previously AT&T offered iPhone insurance through a third-party for $11.99 per month, alongside a $199.00 deductible. So clearly it’s cheaper this time around, and falls under their typical insurance policy, instead of some made for iPhone only scheme.

But, can you imagine the scheming that’s going to go on with this new insurance policy?

We can picture it now:

Sales rep: “Good afternoon Sir, how may I help you today?”
Customer: “Well, I’d like to upgrade my phone.”
Sales rep: “Sorry Sir, you’re not eligible for upgrade until 2012.”
Customer: “Thanks.”

*click*

New Sales rep: “Good Afternoon Sir, how may I help you today?”
Customer: “I accidentally dropped my phone down 12 flights of stairs.”
New Sales rep: “So you need a new phone?”
Customer: “Yup.”
New Sales rep: “No problem, we can replace that for you.”

*score*

Clearly that’s fraud, and we don’t recommend it, but something tells us that it’s prevalence is about to increase once the new policy rolls into place.

Do any of you have insurance on your phone? What about your other tech for that matter? If so, what are the benefits? If it was up to me, I’d never spend a dime on insurance, for anything, except maybe extremely large purchases (a house), or my life.

Let us know in the comments.

Source: AT&T
Via: MacRumors

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.