Panasonic VT50 Plasma Reliability - Should I insure it?

Stu MSD

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Hi Folks,
Panasonic have mailed me offering to extend my 1 year warranty to 5years and I really cant decide what to do.

I have NEVER had a plasma fail on me, and I have had one since they came out many many years ago, but that said, I have never spent nearly £2k on one either.

Is the £250 worth it for an extra 4 years peace of mind or are their warranties known to be hard work when it comes to claim time?

Advice greatly appreciated.
 
Stu MSD said:
Hi Folks,
Panasonic have mailed me offering to extend my 1 year warranty to 5years and I really cant decide what to do.

I have NEVER had a plasma fail on me, and I have had one since they came out many many years ago, but that said, I have never spent nearly £2k on one either.

Is the £250 worth it for an extra 4 years peace of mind or are their warranties known to be hard work when it comes to claim time?

Advice greatly appreciated.
If you plan to keep it that long then imo yes especially at that price but if you don't keep TVs long then not really as Panasonic warrantys are not transferable.
 
It would be useful to have some statistical evidence of how reliable/unreliable specific bits of equipment are but unfortunately that is hard to come by. That said I suspect that Panasonic's top plasmas are well made. We also know that if an electrical item is going to fail it is most likely to do so in the first year.
It's very unlikely to go wrong.

What you can deduce is that if they are offering a 4 year warrant on a £2,000 bit of equipment for £250 then the chance of it failing is massively less than 250/2000 i.e. 1 in 8. The most any repair could ever be is significantly less than £2,000 and these policies are massively profitable to the sellers. So we are probably talking of a 1in 80 at worst chance and a repair bill that might not be that high.

I have nothing against the idea of insurance but these policies are massively overpriced. Remember that John Lewis gives 5 year policies for free, that's a more realistic price and more accurately reflects the risk.

These companies are able to sell these ridiculously overpriced policies because of a psychological effect known as the endowment effect. What this explains is that we fear losing something we have roughly twice as much as we valued obtaining it in the first place. This means that we are particularly vulnerable to fearing the loss of something - particularly something we value a lot - which make us a soft touch for overpriced insurance polices (Or extended guarantees). This makes us uncomfortable not protecting something we value and we lose sight of the real scale of the risk.

There's a way to counter this. Instead of thinking in terms of one extended warranty think of all the items where they try to sell you a warranty -dishwasher, washing machine sky box etc. Take up warranties on none of them and work out how much you save. The occasional repair bill that does then arise comes out of that mental plot. You'll end up well ahead!
 
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Thanks guys, I am going to give it a miss. :)
 
Panasonic have been good to some members, repairing just outside the 12months. Not saying you can rely on it but this has happened.
You also have SOGA protection with the retailer up to 6 years, tho yes maybe not quiteaas good as a warranty you do have some protection.

Personally I like getting one if its free, it can help a sale with me, Id not buy one though.
 
Are you really going to keep it 5 years? prob not with all new tech coming out in next year or so (4k,oled etc..)
 

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