The Rs 1 Lakh Phone Problem: Smartphones Are Getting Costlier, but Protection Hasn’t Kept Pace
A smartphone priced at Rs 1 lakh was once an outlier. This festive season, with flagship launches, no-cost EMIs and exchange offers filling every shopping feed, it is a mainstream aspiration. Protection has not kept pace. A recent OneAssist and Hansa Research study found that 82 per cent of Indians have dropped their phone and 72 per cent have suffered accidental damage, yet active protection adoption stands at just 6 to 8 per cent.
Keeping phones longer, protecting them less
Premium pricing has changed how people own phones. Financing has made upgrades affordable, and an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of high-value consumer durables are now bought on credit. As handsets get costlier, ownership cycles stretch beyond three years. A phone therefore spends more time exposed to drops, spills and pocket mishaps than it once did, yet protection plans remain an afterthought.
Owners do spend on risk, mostly the visible kind. Protective cases and tempered glass have become routine purchases [add figure from the study]. These are partial answers. The study found that phones slipping out of pockets and bags account for 36 per cent of accidental damage, which makes the most ordinary moment one of the costliest.
Awareness is not the problem. Only 36 per cent of users have ever tried a protection plan, which suggests that many try cover once and do not renew. Buyers cite affordability, limited clarity on benefits and doubts about the claims process.
The fall-out of going unprotected
The first consequence is the double EMI trap. When a phone bought on credit is damaged, the owner may still be paying instalments on a device that no longer works, while also finding money for a repair or a replacement. The second is the repair bill itself. Costs rise with the price of the handset, and they arrive unplanned, often at the worst time in the household budget. The third is a quiet step backwards. When a repair is hard to justify, some owners settle for a used phone or a cheaper model, which undoes the upgrade they financed in the first place.
Closing the protection gap
Retailers and financiers have begun to close that gap by bringing protection into the buying moment itself. In stores, it sits alongside the phone and the case. On e-commerce platforms, it appears at checkout. Within lending journeys, it can be built into the loan so that cover and EMI are decided together.
The logic is behavioural. Attachment to a new device and awareness of its price peak at the point of sale, and a simple, upfront price answers the affordability and clarity concerns that put buyers off later. Some plans are now sold like any other accessory and activated by the customer afterwards, from their own phone.
How protection providers are evolving
Placing protection at the point of sale solves distribution, but customer experience is defined when a claim is made. That is why trust has become the holy grail of the industry, and why providers are rebuilding the claims experience around a few simple promises.
Service guarantee plans set out in advance what the customer can expect, so the terms and turnaround time hold no surprises at the time of claim. No-questions-asked programs go further, easing the approval process that many buyers doubt. Technology is shortening the journey as well. With AI-led claim requests, a customer can raise a claim and have the damage assessed digitally, from their own phone, which supports the fast turnaround that matters for a device people use all day. Speed counts only if the promise is honoured, so providers are also stressing adherence to terms and conditions, paying claims in line with what was sold. And because buyers are not only in the metros, service across India has become part of the trust equation, with repair and pick-up reaching customers wherever they live.
The takeaway
Phones will get costlier. They will stay with their owners for longer. Accidents will continue. How to handle the aftermath will remain the customer’s choice, but protection plan providers see this as the inflection point at which plans shift from an afterthought to an integral part of the buying journey.
The article is authored by Abhishek Maheshwari, CEO at OneAssist
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of News9Live.