Is Asurion Cell Phone Insurance Worth It?

Verizon Wireless calls its mobile phone insurance program Total Equipment Coverage. Sprint Nextel (S) has Total Equipment Protection. T-Mobile USA: Premium Handset Protection. The names are barely distinguishable, and the insurance all comes from the same place: Asurion, a 16-year-old company in Nashville that would prefer you never heard of it.

Asurion, which has 5,000 employees in more than two dozen offices around the world, is the quiet giant of the mobile phone industry. The four top U.S. wireless carriers offer its insurance exclusively, and more than 20 percent of the 293 million mobile customers in the U.S. pay Asurion to protect their handsets, according to the company. Asurion charges policyholders between $5 and $12 a month, depending on the model and type of coverage. If a customer loses a phone, breaks it, drops it in the toilet, or renders it unusable in any way, Asurion will try to ship a replacement in a single day—after the person pays a deductible.