Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

Service Contract Market Size: There are signs that the market is topping out at current levels, although home warranty sales continue to soar. Other types of protection plans, such as vehicle service contracts, mobile phone insurance, and extended warranties for brown and white goods, are no longer growing like they used to, though jewelry and furniture protection programs showed slight growth.
February 1, 2018
Telecom Equipment Warranty Report: As the old guard making landline phone equipment declines, the makers of data communication equipment and smartphones are accounting for an increasing share of the industry's warranty expenses. Still, there's been an overall decline in both the expense totals and the expense rates.
May 22, 2014
Mobile Phone Service Contracts: Electronics retailers can't sell insurance, so instead they sell service contracts that cover just defects, malfunctions and some damage. But customers are realizing they also need loss and theft insurance for their smartphones, which only the wireless phone companies currently sell.
November 21, 2013
Mobile Phone Insurance Market Shares: The top four wireless carriers in the U.S. collect more than $7.8 billion in protection plan premiums from their customers, and top electronics retailers collect an additional $4.3 billion for mobile phone service contracts. A handful of administration and insurance companies work with them.
November 14, 2013
Mobile Phone Insurance: While most service contract providers have been able to expand service contracts to cover certain types of damage, only the wireless carriers have been able to bundle insurance policies that cover loss and theft with service contracts that cover defects and malfunctions.
October 31, 2013
Smartphone Warranties: As with luxury cars, we're finding that the smarter the phone and the more advanced its features, the higher the warranty costs. And some of the smartest phones with the biggest market shares are now driving up the warranty costs of their manufacturers.
July 25, 2013
"Expiring" Warranty Scams: Existing laws are not much of a deterrent and the lawsuits are merely a cost of doing business. But a group of auto warranty finance companies think they have a better way to stop the pre-recorded phone calls and misleading postcards: banding together and refusing to do business with the scammers.
August 14, 2008
Warranty Investments: One Wall Street-weary extended warranty administrator is going private while another was swept up by an acquisitive company out to corner the market for mobile phone extended warranties. And then there's ServiceBench, carefully planning its next logical step.
June 27, 2006
Telecom Equipment Warranties: Unlike in other industries, there doesn't seem to be any typical spending rate for warranty claims in the phone, data, wireless, or broadcast equipment sectors. For every high there's a low, and for every upward trend there's a decline.
December 20, 2005