American Express offer a unique insurance benefit with their Explorer, Platinum Edge and Platinum Card that is designed for today’s ever-connected consumer.
Their Smartphone Screen Cover provides cover for the repair cost of your smartphone screen when you have seen your beloved possession ricochet off solid ground, trodden on by a toddler, or used by your kids as a frisbee.
How to get Smartphone Screen Cover with my Amex card
To be eligible for Smartphone Screen Cover, you must be sporting either an:
The Business versions of these cards do not include this benefit.
To activate the insurance, you must purchase the phone outright in a single transaction and put the cost of the phone onto your card. Alternatively, coverage is also offered for a phone purchased on a monthly contract using the card.
If you obtain this card part way through your smartphone contract, you are still eligible for coverage as long as you change your monthly payments to one of the eligible cards and wait 30 days from the date of the first monthly payment to be covered.
All cards offer the reimbursement of repair cost up to a total of $500, which is hopefully more than sufficient to cover most repair costs.
For example, if you have AppleCare+, then you’ll be able to repair any iPhone model’s screen for only $45, however, if it is out-of-warranty, then you can be liable for $200-270 to repair it. The latest repair pricing information is available on the Apple website.
Make sure to not make a habit of breaking your smartphone screen, however, as you will be limited to two eligible claims per 12-month period.
For the claim to be determined as eligible, the screen breakage must only result from an accidental drop or impact.
Excess and the claims process
The procedure to make a claim is relatively straight-forward.
You take your smartphone to a repairer of your choice and ensure that you keep a copy of the receipt.
You then fill in an online claims form and attach the receipt along with a copy of your American Express credit card statement showing the purchase of your smartphone or monthly contract payments.
The applicable excess is 10% of the repair cost.
Policy exclusions
There are a number of policy exclusions under this cover, and these are identical for all of the cards.
The main exclusions include:
- Cover only applies to the screen and not any other parts of the smartphone
- Screen breakage resulting from anything other than an accidental drop or impact, such as:
- water damage, corrosion, condensation, rust or dust
- wear and tear
- breaching manufacturer’s warranty
- intentional or reckless misuse of the smartphone
- any unlawful act committed or attempted by you or anyone authorised by you
- any competitive sports activity
Further information can be found in the credit card insurance terms and conditions below:
American Express Explorer Credit Card Insurance Terms and Conditions
American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card Insurance Terms and Conditions
American Express Platinum Card Insurance Terms and Conditions
Summing up
Smartphone Screen Cover is a welcome feature for cardholders and its inclusion with the American Express Explorer, Platinum Edge and Platinum Cards is a great additional win for what are already appealing cards for points earn and redemption.
The excess is reasonable, and the requirements to trigger the insurance are easily met. Having the benefit to choose your repairer is an added benefit, and the allowance to claim up to twice per 12-month period seems fairly generous.
Other card providers have not followed American Express in introducing this type of insurance to their cards. It will be interesting to see if this changes in the near future due to increasing uptake of smartphones and whether consumers will expect this feature on all credit cards in the near future, much like purchase and fraud protection is today.
Featured photo courtesy Flickr user Warren R.M. Stuart
What if the initial phone plan (2 year plan) has been paid out and a month-to-month byo plan is now being used (Amaysim). Would the insurance still be active if the monthly payments are being paid by the AMEX credit card.
Yes, month-to-month plans paid for using the Amex Plat, Explorer or Essential card are covered, however, there is 30-day wait if not paying for the phone outright.
As long as you meet all the requirements for a successful smartphone screen damage claim, the process to claim is as follows:
Making a claim under Smartphone Screen Cover
You must:
http://www.americanexpress.com/australia/claims
following notification, seek repair of the Smartphone from a repairer of your choice
submit a claim form with the following documents:
a) receipts of the repair;
b) copy of your American Express Platinum Card statement(s) showing the Purchase of your Smartphone or;
Terms and Conditions 23
THE AMERICAN EXPRESS PLATINUM CARD
c) copy of Your contract showing the Smartphone belongs to You and d) for SIM Only Plans a copy of:
i. the 12 month contract
ii. Your Smartphone receipt proving it is less than 3 years old.
As stated above, you are able to pick a repairer of your choice, so I would suspect this would not be an issue. To be 100% sure though, I recommend calling Amex Platinum service to confirm.
Besides the three cards stated above, were there other amex credit card that included the smart phone screen insurance?
I recall the American Express Platinum Edge stating this on there website last year (2016). But I might have just misread the information.
I would be curious as well to hear AMEX’s response re PayPal. I use my explorer as my main card however I tend to use it via PayPal for all my online transactions wherever possible.
I pay for my monthly contract using PayPal with my explorer, however the T&Cs don’t really address wether you have to pay directly with the Amex card to activate the insurance.
Cheers.
Ben
Looking at the terms and conditions in Section D here: https://web.aexp-static.com/au/content/pdf/essentialinsurance.pdf, it says the wait period is 30 days.
Thanks for the update. The terms and conditions were updated 14 January 2017 and it appears that the wait period has decreased from 90 days to 30 days. This will be a welcome change!
I might flick a quick secure email off to them. Would hate to find out after the purchase! 😛