PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — When it comes to his iPhone, Sam Rifkin has had some bad luck. He says, “I had one that fell out of my pocket and fell into a gutter and was completely submerged in water.” And without insurance, that bad luck can be expensive. According to Rifkin, “You have to buy a replacement phone and without a 2 year contract it’s something like $600 dollars.”

“A third of iPhones will have some form of damage in a two year life span,” says Steve Abernathy, CEO of Square Trade, one of a growing number of third-party iPhone insurers. He says, “75% of failure rates of iPhone are from dropping it or getting it wet.”

The $69 Apple-Care extended warranty only covers manufacturer defects. Both AT&T and Verizon offer extended protection plans which do cover accidents and theft, but they come with a whopping a $200 deductible. Compare that to third party insurers like Square Trade, which offers a 50-dollar deductible and you can see why many seek protection outside their carrier.

The trend is certainly not surprising to CNET’s Kent German. He says, “I mean the only advantage of going with your carrier to get a warranty is that your sort of constricting it to fewer parties, but certainly not a danger to go outside that if the pricing is right an the terms are good for you, then by all means.”
Besides Square Trade, others that offer third party insurance include Worth Avenue Group, Safeware, and even Best Buy. Most plans average between $10 and $12 dollars a month but some won’t cover unlocked phones, international accidents, or they limit your number of claims per year. So but be sure to read the fine print before deciding which plan works best for you.

Click below for links to some iPhone insurance plans:

Square Trade:

http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/iphone-landing24

Worth Avenue Group:

http://www.worthavegroup.com/iphone-insurance

Safeware:

http://www.safeware.com/

Reported by Jim Donovan, CBS 3