Groups > comp.sys.mac.advocacy > #136484

Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone?

From	Marion <marion@facts.com>
Newsgroups	misc.phone.mobile.iphone, comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject	Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone?
Date	2025-08-12 17:27 +0000
Organization	BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com)
Message-ID	<107fthd$12a3$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> (permalink)
References	(16 earlier) <107dc8r$2opp6$2@dont-email.me> <107dj4h$1mn7$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <107dukk$2uge8$2@dont-email.me> <107e62l$5ue$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <107fe6v$38to6$1@dont-email.me>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:05:35 -0400, -hh wrote :


>> There is only one way to calculate true costs, and that's to add them up.
> 
> Which only works in a deterministic world.
> Unfortunately for you, insurance is stochastic.

Again and again, you show an aptitude for critical thought processes.
Hence, you're decidedly not a common Apple troll - who simply cannot.

I wonder why you defend Apple products to the death then?
I'm not sure why, as I'd think you'd act more like a normal person would.

Anyway, you're correct insurance models are stochastic in nature.

Where you're correct is that premium:claim ratios are not deterministic
when making estimates on whether or not the insurance will be worth it
simply because there is an unknown of whether or not bad things happen.

But wait.... 

There's a way around that randomness and uncertainty.
Which is how I calculated whether or not the insurance was worth it.

You assume an average of 2 events needing insurance, one big & one small.
In the four years, that's one event on average every two years.

Is it deterministic? Nope. 
But it becomes strategically predictable.

My calculations were not pure randomness; they were informed estimation.

>> Take a look at the thread I referenced where AppleCare pushes up the cost
>> of the iPhone to the point that you pay double the original price.
> 
> Irrelevant, for what matters are the rates of warranty claims, with 
> their respective costs. What the actual insured product happens to be 
> (phone, car, house, person) doesn't change these business principles.

Again, you show an aptitude for understanding, which is non existent in the
common Apple troll so I must rethink why I considered you a common troll.

Sure, the principles of risk pooling and pricing based on claim rates and
costs are consistent across insurance types. But the nature of the insured
product absolutely influences how those principles play out in practice.

A phone warranty deals with frequent, low-cost claims. A house? Infrequent,
high-cost, and often influenced by external systemic risks like natural
disasters or market shifts. A person? Now you're in the realm of health,
mortality, and behavioral unpredictability.

So yes, the math behind insurance is universal, but the inputs,
assumptions, and volatility vary wildly depending on what's being insured.

That's not just a detail as it's the difference between modeling something
as simple as a cracked screen versus modeling an entire human life.

>> Unless you trade that iPhone in after four years of paying for AppleCare.
>> 
>> Then you only paid 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 the price of the iPhone since you get
>> about 1/2 the price back on the original price paid for the iPhone.
> 
> Since that's ignoring warranty claim rates & costs, that's grossly crude 
> & erroneous, which is why you came to invalid conclusions.

Hmmm... now you're talking like an Apple troll since I took into account
the warranty claims. I assumed one major and one minor claim in 4 years.

>> It's why the most expensive phone to own is always going to be an iPhone.
> But the average product costs aren't irrelevant.  Since iPhones trend to 
> be more expensive, where did you appropriately & correctly normalize 
> this variable out?  Because failure to do so is a rookie mistake.

Now you're talking back like a normal person and less like an Apple troll.

Sure, Android phones cost from free to just as much or more than iPhones.
iPhones only cost in the high end, so we have to take that into account.

Most of the time the easiest way to take that into account is to compare
similar phones, but since an iPhone will always lack functionality compared
to Android, the big problem there is no similar phone can ever be found.

But at least we can compare similarly priced phones. 

We've done this in the past, where I asked the team to pick two phones, and
then I would compare the costs, where badgolferman chose the two phones.

When I compared them, as I recall, the iPhone was about twice as expensive.
We used real life data. Even Steve couldn't object to the real numbers.

The overall cost of ownership of an iPhone is always going to be about
twice that of similarly priced Androids, and the iPhone functionality will
be about half (which is a known factor but harder to assess the value of).

Anyway, back to the original topic, if people want to pay an arm and a leg
(plus huge deductibles) for a warranty that I got for free, all the power
to them, as it increases Apple's profits tremendously when they do so.

But I don't want to ever hear them claim Apple makes better product just
because Apple has ungodly profits - as the reason those profits are high is
that Apple marketing tells the Apple customer what to do & they just do it.

Thread

Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-26 04:03 +0000
  Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-07-25 21:32 -0700
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-07-26 11:38 -0400
      Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-26 17:51 +0000
        Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-07-26 19:55 -0700
        Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-07-29 07:07 -0400
          Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-29 22:42 +0000
          Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-29 22:42 +0000
        Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-07-29 12:01 -0400
          Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-29 22:42 +0000
            Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-08-05 13:05 -0400
              Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-06 22:22 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-06 16:04 -0700
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-07 16:02 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-08-07 19:04 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-07 22:55 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-08 10:37 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-08 09:06 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-08 10:29 -0700
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2025-08-08 18:32 +1200
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-08 09:16 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2025-08-09 10:24 +1200
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-08 10:24 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-08 09:54 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-08 16:00 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-08 23:05 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-09 14:56 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-10 22:41 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-10 17:11 -0700
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-10 20:45 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-11 15:33 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-11 14:20 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-11 20:17 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-11 19:33 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-12 01:40 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-12 09:05 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-12 17:27 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> - 2025-08-12 14:29 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-12 19:54 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-08-14 17:21 +0000
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-14 10:40 -0700
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-08-17 16:08 -0400
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-19 11:21 +0000
              Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? sms <scharf.steven@geemail.com> - 2025-08-07 16:11 -0700
                Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-08 10:57 +0000
      Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2025-07-27 09:41 +1200
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tyrone <none@none.none> - 2025-07-26 16:18 +0000
      Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-07-26 09:47 -0700
  Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-07-26 08:40 -0400
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-07-26 09:07 -0700
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2025-07-27 09:37 +1200
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? sms <scharf.steven@geemail.com> - 2025-08-07 11:14 -0700
  Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-07-29 12:02 -0400
  Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> - 2025-08-11 10:06 -0400
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-08-11 15:34 +0000
    Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? sms <scharf.steven@geemail.com> - 2025-08-13 11:25 -0700
      Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-13 11:46 -0700
        Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2025-08-13 19:07 +0000
          Re: Why would anyone buy an extended warranty on a phone? Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-08-13 12:34 -0700

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