Introducing Monzo Premium

@samw are you able to verify this? As assurant have said what you said isn’t true.

2 Likes

Best people to ask are Apple. They will tell you they are not. In fact most insurers are not, and for that reason claiming through them will often void any warranty or consumer protections you have. For that reason, I always look for insurance that will allow me to submit repairs directly to the manufacturer, then provide them with their assessment and bill, which they then refund minus excess.

That’s what I currently get with my contents cover, which is half the cost of Monzo Premium.

You can find a list of Apple authorised service providers in your country when you go through the flows to submit your device for repair.

2 Likes

What’s most frustrating is that Vodafone offer mobile phone insurance from LSG and underwritten by Assurant, as part of that insurance package, iPhone owners can use AppleCare services. So it’s not like Monzo couldn’t keep that route open when agreeing an insurance plan with Assurant.

1 Like

Having looked into this a little more, Assurant don’t seem to be in Apple’s list of Authorised Service Providers in the UK (from here: https://support.apple.com/repair/verify-repair-provider) at any of their registered addresses.

This means that contrary to Monzo’s statement above, Assurant will not be using genuine Apple parts, or replacing with “the same kind of stock” Apple would provide.

7 Likes

Then I feel the product has been completely mis-sold. They are massive implications when we are talking about devices that could be worth £1299

9 Likes

I agree. I’m potentially making a complaint to Monzo on this.

I’ll give them a chance to respond here first before I do, but I’m very unhappy about this - feeling conned into my Premium purchase now. Likely not mis-sold, as the docs are pretty clear, but we’ve been misled by a Monzo employee, which doesn’t feel great.

6 Likes

Depends if you consider a misinformed employee offering information via a non-formal channel mis-selling. Perhaps if you based your decision to sign up, then you have some right to exit your contract penalty free perhaps. Has such a case ever been tested?

But for most people who have only seen the info presented in app, I don’t think they’ve been mis-sold. Some of their wordings are not great, and the policy small prints, may be on the crusp of replicating the mistakes N26 made, but I don’t think they’ve outright mis-sold anyone.

Or maybe Monzo are the innocent party and assurant are not giving customers what they gave the Monzo tests. Iv emailed assurant back asking for more information and the implications for a non authorised apple service provider fixing my phone are on my warranty.

3 Likes

Keep us updated. If what they said is correct, this is a poor policy.

4 Likes

Reading the terms Assurant are upfront about the use of unbranded parts so it’s not missold. However, I’d probably lean on not accepting those terms as you can’t be sure of the quality of the parts being used.

  • Repairs will be made using readily available parts, or we may provide remanufactured products. These may contain parts that are of similar or equivalent specification, and these may include unbranded parts. This policy is provided in addition to any manufacturer’s warranty that applies to your mobile phone (“applicable manufacturer’s warranty”). Nothing in this policy is intended to affect your rights under the applicable manufacturer’s warranty or your statutory rights.

Pg5/6

EDIT: Added paragraph from Ts&Cs

4 Likes

Do you get a premium monzo icon to choose when upgraded?

I get why you feel like that, but I think there’s a big difference between an innocent mistake and a deliberate con, and if there was a miscommunication I’d be fairly confident it was the former. Maybe best to give Monzo some time to come back to you.

2 Likes

I agree, though best to raise it through in-app chat. I wouldn’t wait for a response on the forum as it’s not an official support channel.

4 Likes

Slightly disagree here, in my experience, insurance companies are not no, but i’ve never seen the insurance company themselves carry out the repair. From my experience they always employ a 3rd party company to carry out the repair who will most likely be Apple Verified

Unless stated I wouldn’t expect the repair company the insurance provider uses to be an Apple Authorised Service Provider. My past experience (with Nationwide - who is the same insurer as Monzo) is that they use non-genuine parts.

In fact, unless they go out of the way to state that the repair will be an authorised official one I’d assume the worst. Post Office for example specifically advertise that you can get repairs done with Apple/Samsung directly as it’s such a selling point in the mobile phone insurance market.

3 Likes

That sadly wasn’t my experience when I spilled water on macbook, repaired via insurance, then tried to get the battery serviced at Apple and they wouldn’t because it wasn’t using genuine parts.

I think it’s annoying that insurance companies aren’t more transparent about this stuff, because it becomes incredibly hard to verify. You would think if they were using authorised service providers they would be promoting it heavily, rather than being shady and coy. I learned my lesson and now just stick to insurance companies that specifically state in the terms I can seek my own repair for the item, and send them the invoice.

2 Likes

Yes, swings and roundabouts I guess, I must’ve just been lucky so far.

I didn’t realise Protect Your Bubble was Assurant too so I guess you could expect similar repairs to what they’d do.

I just spent a short while googling trying to find a list of Assurant authorised repairers and unfortunately couldn’t find one.

2 Likes

I should probably clarify, protect your bubble was my insurer at the time! Barclays branch employee recommended them over their own in house insurance. Quite a long time ago though, so may not have been owned by assurant back then.

1 Like

If that’s all I’ve got worry about…my lifes pretty damn good. Thanks for your concern though

Assurant don’t carry out the repairs themselves.

They have a repair centre I can’t remember what the name of it is but it’s outsourced or possible they own it.

It’s a massive one who does repairs for plenty of the big phone manufacturers. Someone else may recall the name.

I’ve just gone through my emails to get their address from the last time I had an Assurant claim. The phones get sent to “Assurant” but the address is registered as TNT Tech Solutions and Mobile Phone Repairs Ltd. They’re a B2B phone repairer so it sounds about right.