[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4803439/height/360/width/450/theme/st andard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/” height=”360″ width=”450″]Chances are if you’re listening to this show, and thank you by the way, you’re listening on a computer or a mobile phone. The begging question is do you have insurance to cover your mobile phone or computer in the event you drop it, or somebody walks off, or runs off with it? Coverage is available and cheaper than you think! Join Karl Susman this week as he explains a little known type of insurance coverage to cover all of your electronics.
BEGINNING OF TRANSCRIPT [00:00]
Karl: This is Karl Susman. This week on the Susman Agency Podcast we’re going to talk about insurance coverage for your electronic gadgets. Today we also have exciting and soon to be not-so-generic guest Maureen on the phone with us. How are you Maureen?
Maureen: [Laughing] I’m doing great. How are you?
Karl: We’re just still generic at some point you’re going to be so well-educated you will not be able to consider generic anymore, so.
Maureen: I know, still generic, eventually, I think you gonna hit mediocre, so I’m almost there. Still generic, and then hit mediocre, and then educated.
Karl: We’ll get there, there you go. Well, this week, what I wanted to chat briefly about was insurance coverage for all of our electronic gadgets and gizmos. I actually hate the expression gadgets and gizmos. I know why we use it but we’re talking about insurance for things like our phones, our computers, and our tablets, things like that. So as I usually do, I’ll start of by asking you, do you have or you aware that there’s a way to get coverage for your electronic items specifically.
Maureen: I don’t have it for the items specifically. When I had a cellphone, I added extra insurance coverage [unintelligible 01:31 – 01:31] with the plan and you could, you know, twist it up a little bit. And then I don’t have any other specific insurance. When I buy a computer, I have a desktop, a laptop, a tablet that I take with me, like I definitely have [unintelligible 01:43 – 01:43] gadgets [unintelligible 01:46 – 01:46]
Karl: Right.
Maureen: And besides, getting extended warranty which I knew it was the same thing, I don’t have specific coverage.
Karl: Let me talk about a little bit about what the coverage is. Maybe it’s fair to start of by talking about the type of coverage that comes with most property policies. Property policies meaning renters, condominium, home owners, things like that. And you’re going to get as you eluded to you’re going to get some coverage on those policies for your electronic items. However, you’re going the, for the same amount the, the same types of paroles that you normally have and I give you example. On a home owners policy you have coverage for fire, right?
Maureen: Right.
Karl: You have coverage, so if you have galaxy note 7 maybe that will make sense for you but for forgetting that, in the event of a lost to your phone, what do you think is more likely to happen for to burn up or for to be broken?
Maureen: Broken for sure.
Karl: Probably broken. Right. Well breakage, breakage is not a st andard coverage on your home owners or your renter or your condo owners policy. So just because you prefer to have coverage for your phone if it breaks, that doesn’t all of a sudden create that coverage under your home owners policy. So breakage just a number one cause or number one or number two cause of lost on for your gadgets and things in only going to be covered the same types of losses that the policy covers everything else for. So in the event of your phone being broken, you’re not going to have coverage for that under your home owners or your l andlord or condos or renters policy. So what do we do? You can get an insurance policy that specifically will cover things like breakage for your personal electronic devices. It’s not expensive. It will cover usually for what’s called all parole coverage. So they’ll say “ok, we’re going to cover your device for everything that happens to it unless we exclude it”. And then they’ll exclude things like intentional damage, things like that. You can’t get coverage if just decide to be deliberately abusive to your device, things like that. And what happens with this type of coverage is you can get a policy for what is called state of denouncing you’ll go and say “alright, I’ve got a phone and my phone cost me 500 bucks. In the event that I damaged the phone or I lose it,” loss is another one. People lose things. They lose their phones a lot. And loss again is not a covered parole under a home owners or renter or condominium owners policy. It be nice but it just doesn’t exist. Theft is covered but not loss. Now it’s one of those you know, great areas people can sometimes get quite frustrated and I totally get it because [unintelligible 04:31 – 04:31] gone obviously somebody took it. Yeah that’s true. But again, this is why you wanna have an agent or broker helping represents you. You wanna be sure that you file the claim properly and you would say that something is stolen if stolen and lost if it’s lost. With this specific electronic policies, electronic protection policies, then you would have coverage whether if it’s lost or stolen or damaged. It’s basically the most broad form of coverage that you will get to protect your electronic devices. And again, I recommend people to look at this policies when they have a laptop, when they have an expensive phone, if they have a tablet, some of the tablets now are super expensive. There are 12 inches super shiny and they can cost [unintelligible 05:19 – 05:19] over thous and dollars sometimes and they break, let’s face it. When you walk around with the 12-inch piece of glass and you’re tapping on it all the time. Chances are you can possibly have it damaged or someone can steal it when you have to put it down when you’re running out to get a cup of coffee. So –
Maureen: Great.
Karl: Electronic breakage coverage great for all of your smaller, portable electronic items that you take around with you. Having said that, do you have any types of expensive electronics that you have just at home?
Maureen: Oh yeah.
Karl: Like what?
Maureen: [unintelligible 05:53 – 05:57] that is way more expensive than my desktop and my laptop. My tablet is definitely the price is [unintelligible 06:05 – 06:05]
Karl: A lot of times, you know, you’ll have, you used to be that you’re most expensive computer was the one at home and now it’s sort of turn around where you might keep it at home. But it’s not necessarily the most expensive item because it’s the portable stuff that’s really more expensive [unintelligible 06:24 – 06:24] And just because something stays at home or goes out with the electronic breakage type of policies, then they’ll typically cover you whether the damage occurs at home or away from home. So again, it’s a very, very broad form of cover that you can get to protect your electronics and again, it’s not covered with the same type of provisions on home owners or renter or condominium owners policy. So if you’re looking to get coverage for this things, you definitely makes a lot of sense to do that. Plus, if you have a claim as I’m sure people are aware, if you file a claim on your property insurance policy, your home owners policy, renter or condo, then you actually have a record. Sounds terrible, but it’s true. You have a claim that you file that it’s there. When you file a claim on one of this separate policies, it’s separate from your property insurance and therefore, you don’t have that claim history that’s following you. It kind of reminds me of when you go, when you rent a car and they try to sell you their own car, the insurance [unintelligible 07:22 – 07:22] and they say “oh, well if you buy our insurance then we don’t report it to your insurance company and it won’t affect your blah, blah, blah”. What they neglect to tell you is they might not report it in to the insurance company where in the event you have an accident, they have to report it to the BNV and the BNV is going to tell the insurance company, so you’re really not [unintelligible 07:39 – 07:39] you’re not really getting out of anything by doing that other than you might be saving your insurance company money from having to pay the client. But they’re still gonna turn around and rate you as you have an accident because guess what, you have. But [unintelligible 07:53 – 07:53] we’ll talk about that in different show [unintelligible 07:55 – 07:55]
Maureen: [unintelligible 07:55 – 07:57]
Karl: Yeah definitely something we’ll talk about on different show. That’s really all I have about electronic breakage insurance. It’s something very inexpensive to get. For example, you know, 500-dollar policy on my phone my [unintelligible 08:09 – 08:09] you know. 80-90 dollars a year and you know, not expensive, and typically companies will give you a lower rate the more years you keep it. So if you have a policy and you just keep renewing it and they’ll actually give you a slightly lower rate year after years as long as you’re not having claims. So I’m an advocate. I think with all the expense stuff out there, it makes sense to toss a couple of bucks at one of these policies to know that in the event they break or you lose them or they’re stolen, that you get them back. What about you?
Maureen: I am an advocate now for sure.
Karl: Yeah.
Maureen: I mean [unintelligible 08:44 – 08:44] salon giving a pedicure [unintelligible 08:48 – 08:50] definitely [unintelligible 08:52 – 08:55] massaging the table really hard and I watched the other person [unintelligible 08:59 – 09:00]
Karl: Right
Maureen: [unintelligible 09:01 – 09:04]
Karl: That’s bad.
Maureen: And that instant, will that fall under the breakage and coverage of –
Karl: Absolutely.
Maureen: Is it? [Laughing]
Karl: Absolutely, they will absolutely, whoever this mysterious friend of yours is that had that horrible thing happen, they will definitely have coverage under one of these policies for that.
Maureen: Too bad she didn’t have that [unintelligible 09:23 – 09:23] when that happened
Karl: Too bad she didn’t know about that. You see every time, everyone at this show that you helped and call and we talked about, not only do you end up costing yourself because you have to buy more insurance, but you end up kicking yourself for not having it before.
Maureen: Oh men. Can I, you know I, too bad she didn’t know or that I was not more educated as well so I could tell her.
Karl: That’s right.
Maureen: That you know it will make her less generic as well.
Karl: Well, you should definitely tell this mysterious friend that she should subscribe to the podcast and pay attention because we trying to make insurance as interesting as possible and as entertaining as possible. But at the same time we wanna be sure that you’re picking up some valuable information along the way.
Maureen: Yeah, absolutely, very valuable.
Karl: Well I thank you all for listening again today and we will chit-chat again next week. And if you have any question, feel free to reach out to us. You can reach us at the office, 310-820-5200, or of course online at susmaninsurance.com. Thanks again for joining us Maureen.
Maureen: Excellent. Thank you.
END [10:36]
