I recently experienced issues with a laptop that had recently gone out of warranty. I purchased it on my Westpac Black credit card which includes Extended Warranty insurance so I looked into making a claim. I was disappointed to discover that there's a huge excess clause in their policy : 'You must pay the first A$250 for each claim'. I had no idea there was any excess in the policy and have been refusing extended warranties in the past assuming that I was covered.
This excess basically makes the insurance totally worthless for any purchase for any purchase under $250 (and I probably wouldn't bother to claim for most items under $400 when you consider the hassle factor, depreciation in a repaired used product vs just buying a new product etc).
I just wanted to make other Ozbargainers aware of these high insurance excesses in case they were not already aware. It seems that the excess varies from card to card too. The Citibank Platinum card only has $100 excess.
Is anybody aware of a card that offers a smaller excess for extended warranty insurance (ideally no excess) with a low annual fee?
Do you need the extended warranty in this instance?
Many people are not aware of their statutory rights which may mean your manufacturers warranty is longer than what they advise. That is, if you buy goods that should be fit for purpose for a longer period (e.g. a $1000 front load washing machine with a 2 year warranty, it may be reasonable to expect 5+ years given the price), you will still be covered. Australian consumer laws don't have hard and fast prescriptions of these thresholds which makes it hard to push sometimes, but still worth considering if you'd be covered. Exceptions might be if you buy a $49 no name angle grinder with a 12 month warranty, I doubt many people would consider it reasonable to expect it to last as long as a $400 Makita equivalent.
Good call out on the excess on cards though.