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The Applecare Hustle

basicappleguy.com

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Re: The Applecare Hustle

#91

Post by vladvasiliu »

matwood wrote: post #84
mehwoot wrote: post #5

In contrast, the insured often relies on a recollection of their history and a ton of emotional reasoning to decide if they will be the statistical oddity to make "a profit" of having bought insurance. This isn't generally the point of insurance. The point of insurance is to amortise risk. Yes, the insurance company expects to, on average, get more money from insuring my house than the cost of any damage to it. But i…

> A company wouldn't offer it if they didn't expect to make money > So maybe it is actually a win-win In the case of AC, I think it is a win-win. Apple could make money and it still be a good deal for the customer. AC on a phone for example. If the user comes in with a broken screen they can pay $100 and get a replacement phone (or $30 for only a screen). The replacement phone didn't cost Apple anywhere near retail (…

> it's very nice to walk into any Apple store with a broken phone and walk out 15 minutes later with a new phone

I think this is something that should be taken into balance.

It's probably less the case with an iPhone, but there is value in the insurance being able to quickly get your widget back to a wrking state.

Say you're a contractor and your computer breaks down. You're not just out the price of a new computer (or of the repairs) but also the fact that if you can't replace it right away, you're losing billable days, maybe weeks. My sister needed to wait a few weeks to have her new Lenovo laptop delivered, and it had no custom options. I wouldn't be comfortable with so long a lead time if my income depended on it. If they're able to deliver on the next business day repair, then it's completely worth it.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#92

Post by schwartzworld »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #80
mehwoot wrote: post #5

In contrast, the insured often relies on a recollection of their history and a ton of emotional reasoning to decide if they will be the statistical oddity to make "a profit" of having bought insurance. This isn't generally the point of insurance. The point of insurance is to amortise risk. Yes, the insurance company expects to, on average, get more money from insuring my house than the cost of any damage to it. But i…

> This is why I don't buy insurance or extended warranty for anything I can pay to replace. Exactly. _Given_ that this is a situation where I'd assume the vast majority of those who could buy the AppleCare brand of insurance could instead just pay for the replacement (how many people can afford precisely 1 macbook but couldn't possibly afford a second one? Some, but not many) - the only thing left to 'play' is to be…

> (how many people can afford precisely 1 macbook but couldn't possibly afford a second one? Some, but not many)

MacBooks are $1300 pros are around $2500. Most people consider that a large amount of money. A new computer is a big purchase for most people. Most would consider replacing one due to damage to be a big loss.

And if you did replace it, would you buy insurance the second time?

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#93

Post by elil17 »

Compare it to the cost of third party repairs and AppleCare starts looking like a truly bad deal. I paid $70 to replace my iPhone 7 screen this year, which would have cost $150 from Apple themselves.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#94

Post by cool_dude85 »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #80
mehwoot wrote: post #5

In contrast, the insured often relies on a recollection of their history and a ton of emotional reasoning to decide if they will be the statistical oddity to make "a profit" of having bought insurance. This isn't generally the point of insurance. The point of insurance is to amortise risk. Yes, the insurance company expects to, on average, get more money from insuring my house than the cost of any damage to it. But i…

> This is why I don't buy insurance or extended warranty for anything I can pay to replace. Exactly. _Given_ that this is a situation where I'd assume the vast majority of those who could buy the AppleCare brand of insurance could instead just pay for the replacement (how many people can afford precisely 1 macbook but couldn't possibly afford a second one? Some, but not many) - the only thing left to 'play' is to be…

I haven't looked at Apple's books or anything, but I have to guess that insurance winners aren't really a "statistical oddity."

The insured population as a whole is a loser (in terms of dollars) or else Apple wouldn't sell the insurance, of course. But I'd guess that individual winners are still common enough - maybe 20%, 30%? - to not be an "oddity".

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#95

Post by Salgat »

fnordsensei wrote: post #18
mehwoot wrote: post #5

In contrast, the insured often relies on a recollection of their history and a ton of emotional reasoning to decide if they will be the statistical oddity to make "a profit" of having bought insurance. This isn't generally the point of insurance. The point of insurance is to amortise risk. Yes, the insurance company expects to, on average, get more money from insuring my house than the cost of any damage to it. But i…

During my decade or so as a consultant, I did a project with one of the oldest insurance companies in my country of residence (they've been around for well over 200 years). They made sure I was aware of their history, in order to understand their business. They started out insuring farms against calamities. If a farm burned down, it was a proper disaster: for the farmer, for everyone who worked there, and for the sur…

The big difference here is that most folks won't be bankrupted if their iPad breaks.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#96

Post by FredDollen »

Read thru all the comments, and surprised to see nobody recommending self insurance. For gadgets like this, take the money you would have paid for insurance and put it in a savings account. If you need a repair, pay from that account. After several years, you'll build up a substantial balance.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#97

Post by _fat_santa »

mbjdesign wrote: post #66
jeroenhd wrote: post #63

The real hustle isn't Apple's insurance, but the ludicrous prices they ask for repairs. $380 for replacing some foam? $380 + 2 x $115 for a manufacturing defect? Hell, $700 dollars for replacing a screen? Or even worse, $520 for fixing some basic issues with a watch? For all of those repair estimates you could've bought one or even two similar devices from other brands. I understand that people get locked into the Ap…

I came here to say this. Whether you take out AppleCare or just take repair costs on the chin: Apple is probably walking away with a decent chunk of cash because the cost of repairs are so high relative to the cost to them - even in the case where a "repair" is actually a replacement. As most repairs (screens for example) are capped within the AppleCare period and carry an excess I think the only situation where Appl…

For me personally the crackling issue is "acceptable" when weighed against the value I get from my AirPods (Pro).

Out of all of my Apple devices, my Airpods are probably the "most essential" behind my Mac and iPhone. Working from home all day and taking calls, being able to handoff between my iPhone and Mac is a true game-changer.

Both my Airpods fell victim to the crackling issue and had them both replaced. I did consider another brand for a moment but I ended up sticking with the Airpods because of all the other benefits.

It's hard to leave Apple products, I'm sure their are better ones out there for every category, just the way they make everything work so well together, it provides so much relative benefit that the drawbacks are acceptable.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#98

Post by cassac »

Looks like he’s not including the repair fees, so his apple car costs are actually 198 more.

But this is only for 3 years??? Some people are just prone to break stuff I guess.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#99

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

roenxi wrote: post #58
fnordsensei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During my decade or so as a consultant, I did a project with one of the oldest insurance companies in my country of residence (they've been around for well over 200 years). They made sure I was aware of their history, in order to understand their business. They started out insuring farms against calamities. If a farm burned down, it was a proper disaster: for the farmer, for everyone who worked there, and for the sur…

I'm staunchly anti-insurance in most cases, as once someone is making a profit it can't be a positive-expected-value deal. But that angle seems to have been covered already so just to be different - insurers also have the strongest incentives in the market to make sure risks don't play out. There is nobody with more at stake in the event of a bad flood or other disaster. The incentive structures around insurance (in…

Historically, insurance companies didn't make money on premiums. Most of the profits came from investing the premiums over time.

This model is clearly breaking down with really low interest rates, hence why you see insurance companies actually caring about premiums and investing in new technology/data to reduce the cost of claims/increase premiums on high risk customers.

Re: The Applecare Hustle

#100

Post by codazoda »

fnordsensei wrote: post #18
mehwoot wrote: post #5

In contrast, the insured often relies on a recollection of their history and a ton of emotional reasoning to decide if they will be the statistical oddity to make "a profit" of having bought insurance. This isn't generally the point of insurance. The point of insurance is to amortise risk. Yes, the insurance company expects to, on average, get more money from insuring my house than the cost of any damage to it. But i…

During my decade or so as a consultant, I did a project with one of the oldest insurance companies in my country of residence (they've been around for well over 200 years). They made sure I was aware of their history, in order to understand their business. They started out insuring farms against calamities. If a farm burned down, it was a proper disaster: for the farmer, for everyone who worked there, and for the sur…

A little off topic but are we talking about Country Companies? I know of them only because I worked at Iomega in the late 90's and they had purchased a lot of Jaz drives and had a very high failure rate.

I went on-site to check it out. The company was amazing to me. A massive, newish building in the middle of a very wide expanse of corn fields. I felt like I had landed in the wrong state.

In the end, I thought their SCSI terminators seemed awful small. I brought one back with me and the hardware engineers found that the company making their computers had skimped on the terminators in some way. Switching to Iomega's own terminators solved the problems.

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