Device Insurance Statistics 2026: Market Size, Claims and Key Trends

Selling device insurance starts with a straightforward proposition: protect something expensive that the customer uses every day. Building a profitable portfolio needs a closer look at repair costs, distribution economics, retention and the devices actually being insured.

That is where device insurance statistics become useful.

The latest research offers plenty of growth forecasts. It also shows a more complicated picture: higher premiums alongside fewer policies in the UK, longer ownership cycles, and protection plans that follow a customer across several devices.

Here are the numbers that matter, and what they imply for insurance professionals.

Research updated 8 September 2026. Reporting periods are stated alongside the figures.

Device insurance statistics at a glance

A scope distinction matters here. Device insurance can cover smartphones, laptops, tablets, wearables and other electronics. The global market estimates below concern mobile phone insurance. Surveys covering extended warranties and broader protection services are identified separately.

How big is the mobile phone insurance market?

IMARC estimates that the global mobile phone insurance market reached $43.7 billion in 2025, and forecasts $87 billion by 2034 on an 8% CAGR through 2026 to 2034. North America was an estimated 38.8% of the market in 2025.

Market Research Future puts its 2025 figure at $43.59 billion and projects $85.53 billion by 2035 on a 6.97% CAGR.

Those two land close together, which is reassuring but not the same as precise. Market research revenues, insurance premiums and the value of bundled protection services are not interchangeable measures.

For planning, keep each provider’s definition and forecast period attached to its number. Splicing figures from different reports into one growth curve produces a line nobody published.

The more useful question is how much of the growth comes from more insured devices, from higher prices, or from broader coverage.

UK gadget insurance: premiums increased while policy numbers fell

The FCA’s latest gadget insurance data gives a view of actual portfolio activity rather than a forecast. Across its 2025 UK reporting dataset, premiums rose 3% while policies in force fell 5% to 7.5 million, registered claims fell 8% and claims costs fell 12%.

Claims costs as a proportion of premiums consequently fell from 42% to 36%, a change the regulator attributes mainly to higher premium rates.

So premium growth can sit on top of a shrinking policy base.

For an insurer that argues for reading rate changes next to retention and exposure. A better premium result does not mean distribution is reaching more customers.

The 36% needs care too. It is a claims-cost-to-premium measure, not an underwriting margin: distribution, administration and other expenses are still to come out of it, and the metric on its own cannot establish whether a product offers fair value.

US adoption: one third buy insurance or an extended warranty

Circana reported in September 2025 that 33% of US smartphone owners buy an extended warranty or insurance service for their device.

That combined definition matters. The figure is not a standalone insurance penetration rate.

The same research found 80% of phone insurance owners on multi-line accounts had other phones on the account insured too, and three quarters of purchasers named privacy, security and identity theft protection among their leading interests.

For product teams that points at two things worth testing: coverage across a household’s devices, and optional services aimed at digital security.

Neither finding guarantees demand for a particular bundle. Interest in identity protection does not establish willingness to pay for it.

Test the offer, measure take-up, then check whether anybody uses the added services.

Longer ownership cycles change the insurance opportunity

How old is the device by the time its owner finally upgrades?

Assurant’s Q2 2026 research found the average age of iPhones submitted through US trade-in and upgrade programmes passed four years for the first time. Those programmes returned $1.43 billion to consumers during the quarter.

These are trade-in observations. They are not the average ownership period for every smartphone user.

“As smartphone prices continue to rise, consumers are looking for smarter ways to manage upgrade costs, and trade-ins, especially when paired with protection, are playing a bigger role.”
Biju Nair, EVP and President, Global Connected Living, Assurant

Consumer research points the same way. In Allstate Protection Plans’ late-2025 survey, 23% of US respondents said they upgrade every three to four years, and 21% wait until the phone breaks.

Longer ownership is a reason to revisit device-age eligibility, renewal pricing and cover after the manufacturer’s warranty expires.

It also raises a retention question worth answering honestly: does the product stay worth having as the device depreciates? That assessment has to weigh the excess, the repair options and the replacement entitlement, not the original purchase price.

Higher handset prices could put pressure on replacement claims

In August 2026, IDC forecast that global smartphone shipments would fall 16.7% across 2026 while average selling prices rose 27.6% to $581, attributing the disruption to memory supply constraints, rising component costs and changes in product mix. Both remain full-year forecasts.

For a device insurer the effects run in several directions at once. More expensive phones strengthen the appeal of protection. Fewer shipments reduce the chances to sell cover at checkout. And replacement claims get dearer wherever a suitable device costs more to source.

A 27.6% rise in selling prices does not imply a 27.6% rise in claims severity. Portfolio mix, refurbished replacements, supplier agreements, repair rates and policy terms all sit in between.

For scale on repair spending, Allstate Protection Plans estimated Americans spent $8.3 billion on smartphone screen repairs in 2023, from surveys published in March 2024. That measures consumer spending rather than insured losses, and it is not a 2026 figure.

The operational priority is duller and more useful: watch actual repair invoices and replacement procurement costs by device model.

Repairability and refurbished devices deserve more attention

EU ecodesign and energy-labelling requirements began applying to covered smartphones and tablets placed on the market from 20 June 2025. They require batteries retaining at least 80% capacity after 800 charging cycles, and availability of key spare parts for at least seven years after a model stops being sold in the EU. The labelling framework includes a repairability score.

Better access to parts could make repair viable in more cases. Whether it lowers claims cost depends on parts pricing, labour, turnaround and the portfolio.

Refurbished replacements raise a different issue: customer confidence.

Allstate’s late-2025 survey of 1,000 US adults found 65% considered refurbished electronics economical and sustainable, while only 18% had actually bought a refurbished phone. Among those less likely to choose one, quality and defects were the prominent concerns.

Which means an insurer settling with refurbished stock should make condition standards, battery requirements and replacement guarantees easy to understand. The settlement can be economically sound and still fail if the customer does not trust the device they are handed.

Protection plans are expanding across multiple devices

The clearest product development is cover that holds several devices under one subscription.

Apple launched AppleCare One in the US in July 2025 at $19.99 a month for up to three products, plus $5.99 for each additional device. It combined service and protection benefits, extended theft and loss cover to eligible iPads and Apple Watches alongside iPhones, and allowed eligible existing devices to be enrolled subject to age and condition.

It kept expanding through 2026. Apple brought it to Australia from 4 August, covering up to three products from A$29.99 a month.

For insurers and embedded distribution partners that is a concrete example of where device protection is going.

A customer may want to add a watch, replace a phone or drop a tablet without starting a separate relationship. Supporting that needs accurate device records, cover stated at item level, and billing that survives a change to the insured device list.

It also creates a reason to measure policy counts and covered-device counts separately. One subscription can be several exposures, and only one of those two numbers tells you about risk.

Theft trends need local evidence

It is tempting to treat rising theft as a universal driver of demand. The recent evidence argues for something more specific.

London’s Metropolitan Police reported an 18% reduction in theft-from-the-person and robbery offences involving a stolen mobile phone across June 2025 to May 2026, against the preceding twelve months. That is roughly 14,000 fewer offences.

One defined set of offences, in one city. Not a global theft trend, and not a claims frequency measure.

The underwriting implication is plain enough: review theft experience by territory, device and distribution channel. Policing, device security and resale opportunities all move the exposure, and none of them move together everywhere.

A broad market forecast is no substitute for that analysis.

Turning device insurance statistics into better products

For carriers, MGAs and embedded insurance teams, the research above points at five practical priorities.

• Separate pricing growth from customer growth. Track premiums next to insured devices, new business, cancellations and renewal retention. A growing premium total can hide falling exposure, which is exactly what the FCA data shows.
• Review eligibility beyond the initial purchase. Longer ownership and the enrolment of existing devices are worth testing, with condition checks, device identification and clear inception rules behind them.
• Connect claims decisions to current device economics. Compare repair, replacement and salvage outcomes by model and age, and count repeat repairs and time without a working device.
• Measure distribution quality after checkout. Attachment rate is useful, and so are cancellations, claims outcomes, complaints and acquisition cost. Judge each partner across the whole policy lifecycle.
• Make product changes manageable. A new device category, a different excess or an extra distribution partner should have a clear route through configuration, review and release.

That last one is where the platform question actually sits, and the honest position is narrow. Openkoda is not a specialist device protection administration suite and would lose a feature-by-feature comparison with one. What it offers is that the product definition, the rating engine tables and the claims workflow live in a product builder you own rather than on someone else’s release calendar, which matters in a line where the handset range refreshes annually.

These statistics are benchmarks for deciding what to investigate. The strongest product decisions will pair them with your own exposure, claims and customer data.

For teams ready to build or refine an offer, our guide to embedded insurance for device protection covers configuring device information, coverage options, premium calculation and validation in an embeddable quote form.