Insurance is one of the things I certainly hate paying for. Health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, and car insurance are all necessary to a degree, but it’s hard to pay for something you only use in a catastrophe.
We’ve gradually dialed back our insurance coverage for things we can ‘self-insure’ the risk of. We have the highest health insurance deductible we’ve ever had and dropped our life insurance a few years ago.
One insurance product I never consider buying is any ‘product protection’ coverage. I haven’t insured our cell phones or protection for any other household purchases for years … until now.
I bought a nice camera drone recently and forced myself to kick in the extra $69 for 1 year of ‘product protection’. The policy allows you to replace 2 drones in a single year if something goes wrong on a flight. The drone wasn’t cheap – $800 – so, if you would crash even one in the first 6-8 years of flying coverage, the payout would be worthwhile (even considering the time-value of money).
I’ve only had the drone for a couple days now, but I can tell I’m really going to love it. It is pretty easy to learn to fly, but when I had it in the air today, it got swarmed by a flock of barn swallows. First a handful, then dozens of swallows went after it, as if it was a enemy bird in their habitat. That situation is an existential risk for a drone since they could easily crash into the blades and it would fall into the water. I barely got it back at full speed – avoiding trees all the way.
Yes, I can certainly cover the risk of losing the drone myself, but given the rather small annual cost, I’d prefer to fly worry free with the protection plan.
Any products that you insist on getting coverage for?
Image Credit: (c) MrFireStation.com (DJI Mavic Air 2)
MrFireStation 
The drone sounds awesome! I have tons of barn swallow where we live too, which is one reason I’ve never bought a drone. We have so many birds on our lake, I’m not sure I could fly one ten feet without hitting half a dozen birds! I hope you get years of enjoyment from the drone. It sounds awesome. I expect some pics soon! I may have to break over and give one a try…
On insurance… I’m much like you, I never buy the extra insurance on appliances or products (…although I would’ve likely considered it on the drone too, give the relative price and likelihood of a crash). We also dropped our life insurance at retirement, after gradually lowering the coverages over the years as our assets grew. It’s amazing how much we still spend between auto insurance, home insurance, personal umbrella insurance, health insurance, and then there’s all of our rental properties insurance policies…ughhh! Insurance (by far) is our largest expense category after taxes. …But don’t get me started on all the taxes! 😜
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Took the drone to Minnesota’s beautiful ‘North Shore’ on Lake Superior and it was AMAZING. This is definitely going to be a big new hobby. I know you like to travel, so I would definitely suggest looking into one even if you are only a little into photography.
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I’ve been considering it for some time. I may break over and give it a try. So many hobbies…so little time to get to them all! (Lol! I should’ve retired sooner!)
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That’s an interesting observation that I think of a lot. How is it that there seems to be less time for hobbies now than when I wasn’t so busy with all of my hobbies? 😉
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