[Henry Jr]

Sorry, I meant to add to my previous post that you should switch insurers

Posted via CB10 from my Q10 (SQN100-3)

[redlightblinking]

The only caveat I would think an insurance company would make would be on a replace with new policy , where if you insured BlackBerrys and BlackBerry phones ceased to exist then the insurance company would not replace like for like that option not being available. In such case you might be at thier whim as to what they considered an equivient phone.

Posted via CB10

This is the case for anything that's insured. At the time of writing a policy for (any given object) they can't predict if that exact object will be available for purchase if a claim was ever made. No policy ever guarantees they'll buy you a new (any given object). They simply guarantee a payment based on your policy or perhaps something that serves as an equivalent replacement.

[sbx9900]

If this company were to insure BlackBerries, they would lose when BB goes bust in 6 months, for BB users would throw or discard or report these phones as missing or stolen or damaged so they could get new phones resulting in excessive losses to the insurance company.

[Wilsonia Goldens]

This isn't written as a scaremongering exercise, but I thought I'd share...

I work for a small company in the City of London. We had our yearly review/quote from our company insurers yesterday. Obviously, the first things discussed where assets such as stock, but smaller items were eventually taken into account. They asked about the company mobile phones. We only have 4 'company' ones, as such, and they are all iToys. They said that this was fortunate, as they are considering not covering Blackberry phones now, as, and I quote, 'Blackberry will likely go bust within 6 months'.

Rubbish rubbish and more rubbish. And how long is this company going to stay afloat?

[Wilsonia Goldens]

If this company were to insure BlackBerries, they would lose when BB goes bust in 6 months, for BB users would throw or discard or report these phones as missing or stolen or damaged so they could get new phones resulting in excessive losses to the insurance company.

Why would they do that! The phones will probably last for 10 years, are the best in the market and be an exceptional tool whether BB is here or not.

[danprown]

It makes sense for the insurer to do that.

It has to do on how the policy is structured: replacement value or actual cash value.

You can see from wikepidia:

The term replacement cost or replacement value refers to the amount that an entity would have to pay to replace an asset at the present time, according to its current worth.

In the insurance industry, "replacement cost" or "replacement cost value" is one of several method of determining the value of an insured item. Replacement cost is the actual cost to replace an item or structure at its pre-loss condition. This may not be the "market value" of the item, and is typically distinguished from the "actual cash value" payment which includes a deduction for depreciation. For insurance policies for property insurance, a contractual stipulation that the lost asset must be actually repaired or replaced before the replacement cost can be paid is common. This prevents overinsurance, which contributes to arson and insurance fraud.[1] Replacement cost policies emerged in the mid-20th century; prior to that concern about overinsurance restricted their availability.[1]

Replacement cost coverage is designed so the policyholder will not have to spend more money to get a similar new item and that the insurance company does not pay for intangibles. [2]
For example: when a television is covered by a replacement cost value policy, the cost of a similar television which can be purchased today determines the compensation amount for that item.[3] This kind of policy is more expensive than an Actual Cash Value policy, where the policyholder will not be compensated for the depreciation of an item that was destroyed.

[mkelley65]

If this company were to insure BlackBerries, they would lose when BB goes bust in 6 months, for BB users would throw or discard or report these phones as missing or stolen or damaged so they could get new phones resulting in excessive losses to the insurance company.

Why would they do that? The phone would still work.

[Sporatic]

Ok, first of all the actuaries that work for these insurance companies are not smart people. They are f$cling geniuses. If this company decided that the phones were a risk they don't want to take it was not based on some rumours or new that they heard at the water cooler. It would have been a highly calculated business decision using a ton of math that most Joe blows would not understand to determine the likelihood of a loss and the cost.

Consider this VERY VERY basic scenario. You have two friends, one with a z10 and one with an iPhone 5. Both have come to you with a request. They will pay you 100 per month on the promise that if anything whatsoever happens to their phone, you will buy them a new one. Dropped, lost, water damaged anything. Which of the two friends do you help?
One thing I would consider is the stability of the company. Maybe bb tanks tomorrow and your blackberry buddy, frustrated that he now has a phone without a company "accidentally" drops with in the pool, just so he can get a new phone.

Maybe they are concerned that the phone is unstable and a crash could cause a loss of data and therefore bring in a claim of lost revenue.

Or maybe, the OP missed something in the entire conversation.

I can assure you that If the insurance company really did have an issue with this, 1) they would just exclude them from the policy
2) it's not because some salesman just doesn't like blackberry. It's due to a highly calculated and researched decision.

My guess is still with something is being misinterpreted by the OP or the company is using it as an excuse not to get Blackberrys

[Sporatic]

It makes sense for the insurer to do that.

It has to do on how the policy is structured: replacement value or actual cash value.

You can see from wikepidia:

The term replacement cost or replacement value refers to the amount that an entity would have to pay to replace an asset at the present time, according to its current worth.

In the insurance industry, "replacement cost" or "replacement cost value" is one of several method of determining the value of an insured item. Replacement cost is the actual cost to replace an item or structure at its pre-loss condition. This may not be the "market value" of the item, and is typically distinguished from the "actual cash value" payment which includes a deduction for depreciation. For insurance policies for property insurance, a contractual stipulation that the lost asset must be actually repaired or replaced before the replacement cost can be paid is common. This prevents overinsurance, which contributes to arson and insurance fraud.[1] Replacement cost policies emerged in the mid-20th century; prior to that concern about overinsurance restricted their availability.[1]

Replacement cost coverage is designed so the policyholder will not have to spend more money to get a similar new item and that the insurance company does not pay for intangibles. [2]
For example: when a television is covered by a replacement cost value policy, the cost of a similar television which can be purchased today determines the compensation amount for that item.[3] This kind of policy is more expensive than an Actual Cash Value policy, where the policyholder will not be compensated for the depreciation of an item that was destroyed.

Replacement cost policies are usually resigned to property and brand new cars. ACV is used for most everything else. Tvs, phones, laptops etc are not going to be insured to replacement cost.

[goodayeh]

Good thing for your company they don't have any BB's to insure.

If they did , then I 'm pretty sure there would be no problem in insuring them . (They probably wouldn't have made stupid remarks about BB either. )

[danprown]

There is replacement cost coverage for electronics. For phones many plans give you a replacement phone minus deductible. That is replacement cost. They don't give you a cheque for ACV.

Replacement cost policies are usually resigned to property and brand new cars. ACV is used for most everything else. Tvs, phones, laptops etc are not going to be insured to replacement cost.

[anon(5828343)]

Probably to replace lost/damaged business phones. Maybe they won't cover because they think they won't be able to replace it in 6 months if BlackBerry goes bust. Stupid though; they could just insure its value.

Posted via CB10

Some of these policies cover "loss of use" so yes, while the BB devices will technically be functional even if BBRY goes bust in 6 months, they're likely concerned about potential lack of support and the eventual inability to use the device which would trigger a claim under the policy. They're betting that their liability would exceed the premiums if they insure a device whose manufacturer is on the verge of either disappearing or breaking up.

Insurance companies essentially calculate their potential exposure based on the events/items they are insuring. In this case, if they have made the calculation that BBRY is toast, they won't risk backing a device that may or may not continue to receive manufacturer support beyond the immediate/short term.

[sbx9900]

Why would they do that? The phone would still work.

Because there are ignoramuses among us who think that these phones that we use will suddenly stop working. And this insurance company thinks that it is being proactive by not insuring these BB's.

[h20work]

This is exactly what's funny about all the people steering away from BlackBerry... they think that if BlackBerry were to bust, the phones and the PlayBook would suddenly dissappear into thin air... how do we call this? Stupidity or ignorance?

From the Z...

Os7.1 and below suddenly become dumb phones without the noc. Unless of course that 4 phone owning company deploys bes.... maybe the insurer should buy them a server?

[Blacklatino]

We call them Americans. :s

Who's we?

[Tre Lawrence]

Who's we?

World Citizens Against American's Goals of Crushing BBRY.

It's a pseudonym for a conspiracy fiction book club.

[h20work]

Who's we?

Funny how someone will take a dig at the us while not saying where they are located I'm guessing it's a "developing nation" where reading skills aren't important, since the op was talking about a UK based insurer...

[mkelley65]

Because there are ignoramuses among us who think that these phones that we use will suddenly stop working. And this insurance company thinks that it is being proactive by not insuring these BB's.

I own my company and deployed BB10, BES 10.1 and PlayBooks. I'm not concerned. As far as I know I don't have any reactionary employees. Someone else said the employee would destroy the phone to get another brand. Willful destruction of company equipment is grounds for termination. I'm not going to even bother asking my broker about this nonsense.

[Dunmanway Emar]

This isn't written as a scaremongering exercise, but I thought I'd share...

I work for a small company in the City of London. We had our yearly review/quote from our company insurers yesterday. Obviously, the first things discussed where assets such as stock, but smaller items were eventually taken into account. They asked about the company mobile phones. We only have 4 'company' ones, as such, and they are all iToys. They said that this was fortunate, as they are considering not covering Blackberry phones now, as, and I quote, 'Blackberry will likely go bust within 6 months'.

Sounds like one boring meeting if you were reduced to including 4 mobile phones in your list of assets and your topic of conversation. I do hope you didn't then have to move on discuss the life cycle of your water cooler or the office stapler. I am a freelance company secretary and as such arrange insurance cover for many different companies. None of them have ever been asked to itemise small value assets. In fact most of these companies classify any single purchase of less than �500 as revenue expenditure rather than capital expenditure and don't class it as an asset at all. in the event of a claim they are paid for replacement value of the item or any similar item

[Stwutter]

Sounds like one boring meeting if you were reduced to including 4 mobile phones in your list of assets and your topic of conversation. I do hope you didn't then have to move on discuss the life cycle of your water cooler or the office stapler. I am a freelance company secretary and as such arrange insurance cover for many different companies. None of them have ever been asked to itemise small value assets. In fact most of these companies classify any single purchase of less than �500 as revenue expenditure rather than capital expenditure and don't class it as an asset at all. in the event of a claim they are paid for replacement value of the item or any similar item

It wasn't the most interesting of meetings, no, but thanks for your concern... I should point out that I (the OP) posted this as an odd 'quirk' from my day, and not to send it off into orbit about the rights and wrongs of underwriting, and, indeed, the subject was only brought up in conversation as our acc. had his own Curve sitting on the desk. As I insinuated in my OP, it was more that a couple of old guys from our insurers were aware of BB's issues, and what light current popular opinion shows it in. Whether they actually give two ****s about a few mobiles here and there wasn't the point.

Posted via CB10

[qwerty4ever]

actually it's written in the core OS that if blackberry goes bust, they (blackberry) will flip a switch and each device based on model will either break open or spontaneously combust! this why they wont insure the devices

Posted via CB10

Would that be the "Lucifer Clause" in their insurance policy? : devil:

Posted via CB10 from the BlackBerry Z10

[Sporatic]

There is replacement cost coverage for electronics. For phones many plans give you a replacement phone minus deductible. That is replacement cost. They don't give you a cheque for ACV.

I'm not talking about the pretend insurance policies that carriers have.

[danprown]

I may be misunderstanding your point. Are you saying there are absolutely no RCV policies for electronics?

In my experience, there are replacement cost policies for electronics. Even under plain vanilla home insurance policies, you can buy an endorsement to your regular personal property (which are usually ACV and cover tv, computers, etc.) or you can put certain items on a schedule and insure them however you want them for the appropriate premium. The same is for business policies.

Separately, there are hundreds of outfits separate from carriers which provide replacement cost insurance for electronics. They may be "pretend policies" acctoding to you, but they are policies nonetheless.

I'm not talking about the pretend insurance policies that carriers have.

[jstirtzinger]

I call Bull Sh*t.
I've been involved in probably a dozen insurance contracts for company assets and never heard of such product specific activism. It doesn't work this way. This isn't real.

Posted via CB10

[Stwutter]

I call Bull Sh*t.
I've been involved in probably a dozen insurance contracts for company assets and never heard of such product specific activism. It doesn't work this way. This isn't real.

Posted via CB10

Maybe read my most recent reply in this thread before throwing your toys out of your pram.

Posted via CB10