Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

Cut mobile phone insurance by £100/yr per person

Many pay over the odds. Switch to cheap standalone policies or 'self-insure' to save

Are you a loser? If like many of us (Martin certainly admits to being a loser), you've a habit of misplacing, dropping or otherwise damaging that expensive handset, then having cover is worth it. In our modern world, many feel their lives cut in half without a phone. Our Cheap mobile insurance guide has full info, but here's a quick briefing...

• Cheap standalone insurance: £55/yr to £70/yr for phones bought in last 3yrs. These cover loss, theft & accidental damage, at a fraction of the cost of mobile network's policies. Though do check replacement speed - it can be as quick as two days (excluding processing time), but some are slower. You usually pay a £50 to £100 excess per claim. While exact prices vary by handset, we found via spot checks these four are usually the cheapest, meeting our minimum cover levels...
  
  1. Insurance2Go* plus £10 off 'Full' cover with code 'MSE10'. 2. Mobile Phone Insurance Direct* get 2mths free if you pay for annual 'Premium' via this link. 3. Love It Cover It* code 'SAVE10' gets 10% off 'Premium' cover. 4. Switched On* 'Ultimate' cover.

• The fastest replacements: Your network's cover, but it can cost up to £186/yr. Here, handsets can arrive the next working day, but you can only cover new phones and insuring an iPhone 15, say, costs £150 to £180 with excesses £40 to £149. See firm-by-firm insurance. Cheaper models? These cover them, but you're sometimes paying as much during the contract as you could buy a replacement for, so you'd often be better using one of the methods below...

• In a family or couple? Pay under £160/yr to cover all your smartphones (of any age) and get quality travel & breakdown cover too. They're called packaged bank accounts, but for us the main purpose is insurance. Get one of these bank accounts (you don't have to switch it to be your main account), pay a monthly fee and loads of decent quality insurance is thrown in (do register your phones if possible, as it can speed up claims). Briefly, here are our top picks, but for full details, options and eligibility criteria, go to our Top packaged bank accounts for insurance guide.
  
  - Families: cover for under £160/yr. The longstanding Nationwide FlexPlus* £13/mth is now slightly undercut by Virgin Money Club M at £12.50/mth, though Nationwide's banking customer service rating is far stronger at 84% 'great' to 43%.
  
  Both cover phones of any age for all the 'family' living in the household, including the kids (Nationwide max 18 years old, or 21 if in full-time education), and give worldwide family travel insurance and UK & European breakdown cover. So for under £160/yr, you get all this insurance for roughly the cost of network cover for one phone.
  
  Jane emailed: "I read your article about mobile phone insurance which gave info on Nationwide. I had been shopping around for annual travel insurance. By opening this account, my husband and I saved £695 on our travel cover, and have breakdown and phone cover also. Thank you."
  
  - Couples: cover for £135/yr (and a year's free Disney+). Club Lloyds Silver* covers your & your partner's phone for £10/mth (£11.50/mth from 1 July; min pay-in £2,000/mth) if you set it up as a joint account (even if only one of you actually uses it). You also get Europe & UK family travel insurance, UK breakdown cover and a 'free' 12mths of Disney+ (with ads).

• The DIY option: Self insuring - especially good for lower cost handsets. If you rarely lose or break your phone, or have an older and/or lower-value model, rather than paying for cover, you could simply put a similar amount of cash aside each month into a top savings account. If you need to repair or replace your phone, the cash is there to pay for it. If not, it's yours (the main issue is if it goes wrong in the very early days of saving - so it can be good to combine with...)

• The E.T. Option: Phone, home insurance. Many home contents insurance policies cover handsets lost in a burglary or fire. Some let you pay extra to cover your phone for damage or loss/theft outside the home too, though excesses can be high and a claim could whack up renewal costs. Yet it can easily take more than a week to get a replacement phone or the equivalent cash through your insurer, so think about if you could cope without in the meantime.

• Mobile phone insurance claim unfairly rejected? You've a right to go to the free Financial Ombudsman. All these policies are fully regulated, meaning if you claim and it's rejected unfairly in your view, you can make a formal complaint. And if that's rejected, you can go to the free Financial Ombudsman for an independent adjudication.

Seven quick, quirky or fun ways to put a 'cha-ching' in your pockets... give your piggybank a growth spurt

There are two ways to please your pockets. We normally focus on spending less, but this note is about how to earn a bit more. Now, let's not over-egg the pudding, we're talking £10s or at best £100s here, and it won't always happen, but we wanted to bring out some hidden fun ways to get a bit extra. There are lots more in our 60+ ways to earn extra cash guide.

1. Are you a bit gobby? 22 sites that pay for your opinion. Willing to give views on activewear, electric cars or washing-up liquid? You can make as much as £5 per survey (though often less). See our 22 top paid online survey sites guide.
   
   
2. Earn £50 to £200 road-testing NEW video games. Before big new games hit the shelves, firms need to test them out. You'll usually need to go somewhere for a few hours to do it, but it typically pays £50 to £200. See Research-i.
   
   
3. Prefer to earn a little bit while playing games on your own phone at home? We've checked out the mobile games that pay you to play them. Quick tips and top apps in Make money playing mobile games (it's mostly an Android thing).
   
   
4. Earn an extra £20 Amazon voucher when you earn £10 doing online activities. Swagbucks is free to join and rewards you for online activities such as surveys, gaming and more - many MoneySavers love it. For a limited time, newbies who go via our link can get a boosted £20 Amazon voucher when you earn your first £10.
   
   
5. Fancy getting paid to buy a beer? It could happen if you choose to take on a mission... free apps pay up to £20/job to check prices/take photos, from tasks such as counting stock in shops, snapping menus in restaurants and even ordering a beer to photograph how it's served. You're competing against others for jobs, so don't get too excited, but you never know. See how to get paid for easy tasks.
   
   
6. Earn £40 to £200 in 2hrs via market research focus groups - often via Zoom. Some MoneySavers make £1,000s, so we've boosted our list of top agencies that pay from 17 to 20 to help you make cash from market research.
   
   
7. Get PAID to report derelict homes. Get a £20 Amazon voucher if you're the first to report an empty/derelict home (in Eng & parts of Wal) + possibly a 1% cut of the building's purchase price, if sold. A few have made £1,000s. YouSpotProperty

PS: Earn £200/day counting votes in elections? Councils need help counting votes and staffing polling booths for general, local & mayoral elections - it's a great opportunity to help make democracy work while earning some extra cash. For example, we saw counting assistant jobs at £200/day. While councils we spoke to were fully staffed for the 2 May local elections, many were still adding to reserve lists. Plus, it'll get you on the database for the next general election.