Laptop Insurance or Extended Warranty or Both?

So, after having a bit of a scare with my laptop where the Sony rep on the phone basically accused me of physically damaging the laptop (thank GOD this wasn't the case and the repair was covered under warranty as it should have been, considering this laptop has barely been touched!) and having recently got it back from Sony after repairs, I'm having a huge case of buyer's remorse for not getting an extended warranty, especially with accidental damage from handling.

Right now, I'm looking at two options in terms of extending my warranty. It's past 30 days, so I can't get any warranty to cover accidental damages, either from Sony or a third party. However, I can get a pretty cheap 3-year extended warranty from Square Trade with a 50% off coupon for $70. Meanwhile, SafeWare is quoting me $287 for a 3-year laptop insurance that covers damage, collisions, theft, etc.

What should I do? Just get the Safeware insurance and hope that Sony's components are reliable enough to last me the three years? Just get the Square Trade extended warranty and hope for no physical/accidental damage? Get both and take a huge hit to my poor wallet?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

In my opinion, extended Warranty is the biggest rip-off put together by most electronics manufacturer/retailers/third-party. Every single piece of electronics you buy, they give you an option of buying extended warranty option (not talking about accidental warranty, just the extension on the standard manufacturer warranty). Statistically, if you look at the failure rate of most products, they follow what is termed the "bathtub" curve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve .

In other words, if a product is going to fail due to poor workmanship or defects or so on, it will most likely fail within that first year. That's when the failure rate is highest. If it survives the first year, then the failure rate is pretty low and constant. Then after so many years, once the product has aged, then the failure rate picks up again, and the product is at the end of its lifecycle (which happens much later than that extended warranty would cover anyway).
By law, manufacturers are required to provide a period of warranty or guarantee of quality of their product (depending on what it is, most are at least a year).
The parties that insure or provide extended warranty to products understand the statistics pretty well and understand that its a profitable business.

Bottom line is, I always consider "not" getting an extended warranty, if all that it is, is just an extension of the regular warranty.

However, depending on the product, if its something portable and you handle it often, then the "accidental" coverage would be a good idea (or insurance with guarantee of replacement due to any kind of failure, accidental or non). The product might be well made, but as a user, if you screw up, and people often do, then its worth having the accidental protection. If you'll always have your laptop on a desk, then you probably don't need it.

Also, most credit cards, like American Express, will provide an automatic extension of the manufacturer warranty by a full year if you put the entire purchase on that credit card - although the credit card will service the replacement/repair. But I also bought accidental protection from Sony for two years, as I know I am quite clumsy at times.

But every person is different, and they want to have a "peace of mind" when they spend $2500 on a laptop. If for the price you paid for your laptop, $287 is not a big deal for the protection it provides, I say go for it, because it does more than the extended warranty. However, I wouldn't personally buy that $70 extension warranty. $70 is not worth it ($287 protection is though).

 

Go for the insurance. No doubts about it.

 

i have found most of my electronics seem to fail/fault somehow within 2 years, though i agree any real problems should be seen within the first year. i have a technological curse (which my family think is amusing at least) and have bad luck though i treat everything very well.

i tend to buy extended warranty's for this purpose but only if the extra cost is within a low percentage of the original items cost. an expensive item i will more likely get the extra for peace of mind but otherwise its never worth it really.

i think with a laptop i'd be more worried about accidental damage, and if i were in this position, i would probably just get the insurance and not the extra warranty.

 

Hmm. Yeah. The only reason I'm even considering the extended warranty is that $70 is about 5% of my laptop's cost and the extra 2 years of coverage may prove worth it, since replacing the screen for defects or the CPU/motherboard could easily double/triple/quadruple that cost. But then, I am basically betting on my equipment failing within 3 years. (I don't plan to keep the laptop longer than that, so I'm not too worried about the longer-term failures).

I think I am definitely going to go for the insurance, though, even if not necessarily from SafeWare. I just got a quick online quote from AllState that's about the same amount as the Safeware quote, but would cover all my possessions, including my desktop - although it does have a $250 deductible unfortunately. Does anyone here have renter's/homeowner's insurance? If so, would you insure it at Replacement Value (so say, if my laptop got stolen in two years, I would get reimbursed the full retail cost of my laptop at the time I bought it) or Actual Cost Value (so, the reimbursement would take into account depreciation)? I'm actually sort of leaning towards Actual Cost Value, because if I want to keep the laptop/have the same specs, I'd simply order a new one at the lower market price. If I want a better laptop, I could conceivably just use the reimbursement towards a more expensive replacement, if they allow something like that. What do you guys think? Do you all generally just get accidental handling with your warranties or do you guys use renters/homeowner's insurance to cover accidents?

AHH. So many choices! =\

 

UPDATE - In case anyone else is in the same position as me - I ended up going for insurance and not the extended warranty. Since I am a student, I qualified for a discount insurance service with NSSI ( http://www.nssi.com) - and I'm covered up to $2000 with only a $25 deductible, whereas most homeowner insurances have $250+ deductible. I pay $60/year, so I'm basically paying $180 for coverage on theft, accidental damage, earthquakes/floods/fire and practically everything under the sun except strangely enough power surges not due to lightning. (And of course, nuclear war and government/war seizure - but I figure if that's happening, my laptop's gonna be the least of my worries. ) The plan is replacement cost, so if an item is lost, I get however much I need to replace it with the same (or a similar) machine instead of the depreciated value of the machine.

Anyway, in case anyone else is looking for accidental coverage, this is a pretty decent alternative, especially for students who don't want to shell out too much money for the accidental damage coverage of Sony.

 

totally agree.. i never buy extended warranties... what i do is.. i trade in my old computer with Sony for a new one every 1.5 to 2 years... (or when I start noticing there might be a problem).

IMO, Sony provides good residual values too...