Insurance is vital if your children are carrying around $1000 gadgets in their schoolbags. Devices disappear, and if there's a way to break them, children will find it, even if it's by accident. If you've got two or three children carrying phones, laptops or tablets to school, you've got a lot to lose.
Haydn Halls, executive general manager of Warehouse Money, points out that most household contents policies provide cover for phones, laptops and tablets when they are outside the home, such as at school. Most provide full replacement cover, aka new-for-old.
As well as the Warehouse, AA Insurance, Tower and others offer new-for-old cover for phones, computers and tablets, for example.
Some home contents policies only pay "indemnity" or "market value" cover for all devices, or those over five years old. This means the amount paid is more or less the secondhand price for the lost, damaged or stolen item, not the cost of replacement with the latest model. Of course you pay a lower premium for policies that offer indemnity only. But if you can't afford the cash price to replace the item, nor the additional interest to buy it on credit, then a new-for-old policy can make sense.
Halls points out a catch that sometimes gets parents. If the "child" is a university student living away from home, it is unlikely that their parents' contents insurance would provide cover for them unless they are living in a hall of residence.
There are some exceptions. Tower, for example, has a university and boarding-school extension, which covers loss or accidental damage to goods worth up to $5000 with a $400 excess. Devices are replaced if up to five years old or covered for indemnity value after that.
The other thing people should check is their excess. If you have a $500 excess on your contents policy and your child loses a $700 tablet, that means you will only get $200 to replace the item.
ANZ offers an "excess buy back" option, which means that if the value of a claim is over the excess, you will receive the full $700.
In the case of a child who smashes a device, technically it wouldn't be covered by insurance because it wasn't an accident. There are sometimes exclusions as well when the owner of the goods has behaved recklessly.
Another point to be aware of, says Halls, is that if you make multiple claims in a short period of time for similar items, your insurance company might increase your excess or premium, or even exclude specific items from your cover, such as smartphones. Your name will also appear on the Insurance Claims Register for all insurers to see.
From what I understand, it is a low-income family in a high-decile area that is more under pressure as most families in that area can afford to provide devices, so they are under pressure to do so.
Middlebrook points out that prevention is best and you can help avoid damage to a smartphone or tablet by buying a protective cover, which these days are often waterproof and shockproof. It's a cost-effective way to extend the life of the device beyond the first time it's dropped or left in the rain.
Another protection against theft, says Middlebrook, is making sure your child's device is locked with a password only they know. Make sure they understand how important it is to keep the password secure.
Protective cases are available from the likes of Harvey Norman, the Warehouse, Noel Leeming and other high street retailers, as well as Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees. Such items are also available online from Aliexpress.com for a few dollars. Tempered glass screen protectors for just about any modern phone or tablet can be bought cheaply, which is a good insurance policy and shockproof cases can be found for not much more.
Do check that your children's devices are covered under your insurance. I've been looking at Youi's policies of late. The Youi standard household contents policy doesn't cover any goods outside the home nor accidental damage. Lots of sorry tales of customers who didn't realise this have appeared on Youi's website. There are some very unhappy former iPhone owners.
The question of who pays for devices in the first place, child or parent, interests me. My children pay for their own, which means buying cheaper brand phones such as the Huawei P8lite, which my daughter just bought, and the Vodafone Smart range, favoured by her friend. Both are just as good as an iPhone, they tell me, but cost a lot less.
Schools' BYOD (bring your own device) policies are a big headache for poor parents. If they're in a low-decile school, the devices are often provided free, subsidised or other financial assistance is provided. "A lot of schools in low-decile areas are very aware of the issue and putting things in place so low-income families aren't disadvantaged," says Raewyn Fox, chief executive of the New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services.
"From what I understand, it is a low-income family in a high-decile area that is more under pressure as most families in that area can afford to provide devices, so they are under pressure to do so."
Some schools specify a model in an attempt to remove the competition to have the best brand, says Fox.
Her colleague Keith Coppins has been through the "ordeal" of having to get BYOD devices for his children. "While the school is very careful in saying that a device is not 'required' - or compulsory - it does disadvantage a child who does not have access to a device at school because they are generally used for researching topics.
"We bought our son an older iPad Mini but also chose to purchase a LifeProof protective case for it just in case he dropped it. He ended up not dropping it, but having it stolen from his bag. Although the school contacted the local police, and they knew who had taken it, they said they couldn't do anything about it, so we are out of pocket because the excess on our insurance policy is such that it is not worth us claiming.
"We were told we could get any type of device. It was highly recommended, though, that we buy Apple products as the teachers had been trained in their use and can help with any issues with Apple but won't necessarily be able to help with other products."
Coppins noted that the family's school stationery expenditure hasn't dropped despite the fact that their children go to BYOD schools.
