Maxis Smartphone Protection - is it worth your money?

I am very blessed not to have lost my mobile phone but the same cannot be said for my other half. He lost 2 phones in the past year..

Blame it on:-
A) small pants pocket and
B) bigger phones
Sigh...

So when we were told that we can opt for an insurance plan that replaces or repairs the phone in the even of theft or damage, our interest were immediately piqued.

On top of that, there is data protection in the event of loss but when we asked further on this, the staff could not really answer on how the mechanic works because I had a cousin who subscribed for some data backup from Maxis but there were no backups stored when she actually lost her phone.

It seems that for this to work, there are some steps you must take to "backup" the data and not merely pay the monthly fee.

Anyway for this protection plan, the price of the MONTHLY premium will depend on the price of your phone. The minimum premium would be RM12 for a phone that costs from RM501 - RM1,000 (see below).

Table on the premium prices and excess fee

You do not pay the premium on the spot but it will be billed in your monthly phone bills.

You can click Maxis link for more information Maxis addons/security-and-protection/smartphone-protection or device-insurance

EXTRA NOTES:-

1) Besides the monthly premium, in the event that you are getting a replacement, you have to pay additional excess fee to get it. The excess fee starts from RM75 for the RM501 - RM1,000 phone category to a maximum of RM250 for  RM2,001 - RM3,000 phone.

2) you can claim for damage to phone by water or accidental damage and Maxis will try to repair the phone. In the event the phone cannot be repaired, it will be replaced.

3) If you successfully pay the premium for 12 months consecutively, you will enjoy an extra 12 months of warranty for your phone (on top of the 12 months warranty which comes with the phone).

4) This protection is only offered on the very same day of phone purchase and it can be cancelled at any time. Which means you are forced to make the decision on the spot saying that there is nothing much to lose since you can cancel it after one month. How smart of Maxis.

5) Interestingly while we signed on for the insurance, a lady came up to us and WARNED us to read the fine print with a magnifying glass.

She made a theft claim and was unsuccessful because apparently the theft has to be an attended theft.

What are the probabilities of you losing a phone while the phone was in your hand??

6) Not only that, the phone must be stolen while in the hand of the registered owner and not third party. Wow! That's a lot of details which Maxis did not highlight to their customers.

7) Also you do not get to keep the fine prints because the page with all the fine prints are on the same page as the form.. so when you submit the form, you give it back to Maxis. How inconvenient.

So all that is left of the brochure are these few pages which I have uploaded as well as a page of some of the terms and conditions in Malay.

CONCLUSION

So on a balance.. this plan would be worth it if you can prove attended theft or if you are accident prone.

As for me, I guess I will join the statistics of those people who thought this was too good to miss and in the end find that it is not as good as it claims to be :(