Laptop Insurance?

[wombar]

Hi All,

I was hoping you guys (& gals) would be able to help me find some laptop insurance for my brother. He's going backpacking in November and will be taking a laptop with him.

He'd like some insurance to cover the laptop (probably going to be a Dell ATG but we'll see) that doesn't have a million and one exclusions. We're looking for the following (though I don't expect to get them all).

- Accident Damage Cover (In case he drops it etc)
- Theft Cover (Ideally one that doesn't require it to be torn out of your cold dead hands before they pay out )
- Worldwide Cover (obviously )

The most important one is the accidental cover, it would be great if he doesn't have to return the laptop back to the UK if he needs to claim.

If anyone has any recommendations (or horror stories) about the decent policies out there, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks all....

[Funkstar]

Speak to whoever does his/your/parents home contents insurance see if they have any advice, same with his travel insurance.

[dave87]

Yup, mines covered under the home insurance. Not too sure on abroad, but I would guess they would be able to sort something else out (at an additional cost).

[Stompy]

Well if you get the Dell, you can buy their own completecare accidental damage cover.

[wombar]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll check out those options. I've seen the Dell cover, but I need to read through some of the Ts & Cs and see what they cover/exclude.

It would be nice to have a decent theft policy (haven't looked at the Dell stuff yet), but then laptops are prime targets so I guess you can't have everything.

I'll keep looking around but if anyone has any direct experience with these kinds of policies I would love to hear your experiences. As we all know, just because an insurance company says you're covered, doesn't mean that it actually works when you come to claim.

[nichomach]

CompleteCare cover's good on the accidental damage front, but the theft is limited to theft from a secure location; to give an example, if a laptop is on a desk in a locked office and someone breaks in and steals it, it's NOT covered. If it's in a locked desk drawer to which only the user has the key it IS covered - even if the office was unlocked. It's covered if stolen from the locked boot of a car, but not from the passenger seat. It's also covered in the case of a theft involving assault (i.e. street robbery). I've just scanned in the relevant section from one of our policies:

SEE HERE for details.

[wombar]

Thanks nichomach, much appreciated. I was reading through the Ts & Cs earlier, there's some funny exclusions considering it's worldwide cover.

Looks like if it gets damaged, the laptop is going to have to come back to the UK and then get shipped back to him which is going to be a PITA. I was hoping Dell would be able to do worldwide support, but I guess not. If it gets stolen they'll only replace it within the EU(i.e. they'll only send it to within the EU).

Looks like most of the policies around are much the same. He's going to be in USA/NZ/OZ for most of the time so I'll have a scout around and see if I can find somewhere that will offer immediate cover in those areas.