You can find out if your phone has insurance by checking three places: your phone’s built-in settings, your wireless carrier account, and your credit card benefits. Most people who have phone insurance either added it through their carrier when they bought the device, enrolled in a manufacturer protection plan, or are getting coverage automatically through a credit card they use to pay their phone bill. Here’s how to check each one.
Check Your Phone’s Settings
If you have an iPhone, go to Settings, then General, then AppleCare & Warranty. Tap your device, and you’ll see whether you have an active AppleCare+ plan, when it expires, and what it covers. You can also visit checkcoverage.apple.com and enter your phone’s serial number, or sign in at mysupport.apple.com and select your device to see your coverage status.
Samsung phones don’t have a built-in settings menu for insurance, but you can check for Samsung Care+ coverage by logging into your Samsung account at samsung.com and looking under your registered devices. If you bought your phone from Google, you can check for Preferred Care coverage through the Google Store order history tied to your account.
These manufacturer plans are separate from carrier insurance. You could have one, the other, or both. If nothing shows up in your phone’s settings or on the manufacturer’s website, that just means you don’t have a manufacturer plan. You might still be covered through your carrier or a credit card.
Check Your Carrier Account
The most common type of phone insurance comes bundled as a monthly add-on through your wireless carrier. It’s usually provided by a company called Asurion or a similar third-party insurer, even though it appears on your carrier’s bill. These plans cover things like cracked screens, water damage, loss, and theft, with a deductible for each claim.
Log in to your carrier’s app or website and look at your current plan details or line-level features. Insurance typically shows up as a separate monthly charge attached to a specific phone line. T-Mobile, for example, calls its plan Protection 360, which costs between $7 and $26 per month per device depending on the phone model. Other carriers use names like device protection, mobile insurance, or equipment coverage. The charge is usually listed as its own line item on your monthly bill.
If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, pull up your most recent bill and scan for any recurring charges beyond your base plan and phone payment. A charge in the $7 to $18 range labeled with words like “protection,” “insurance,” or “device care” is almost certainly phone insurance. You can also call your carrier’s customer service line and ask them to confirm whether insurance is active on your line.
Check Your Credit Card Benefits
Here’s one that catches many people off guard: you may already have phone insurance through your credit card without ever signing up for it. Several credit cards include cell phone protection as a built-in perk, covering damage and theft with no monthly premium. The catch is that you need to pay your monthly wireless bill with that specific card to activate the coverage.
This benefit is most common on mid-tier and premium cards. Mastercard offers cell phone protection on its World and World Elite tier cards, though each card issuer decides whether to include it. Visa Signature and Visa Infinite cards sometimes offer similar coverage. The specifics vary by card: typical coverage runs $600 to $800 per claim with a $25 to $50 deductible and a limit of two or three claims per year.
To check if your card includes this, look up your card’s benefits guide. You can usually find it by searching your card’s name plus “benefits guide” online, or by logging into your card issuer’s website and looking for a section on card perks or protection benefits. If your card does offer cell phone protection, make sure your wireless bill is actually being charged to that card each month. Paying even one month with a different method can temporarily suspend your coverage.
What Each Type of Coverage Actually Includes
Not all phone insurance works the same way, so knowing which type you have matters when you need to file a claim.
- Carrier insurance typically covers accidental damage, mechanical breakdown after the manufacturer warranty expires, loss, and theft. You’ll pay a deductible per claim, often between $29 and $275 depending on the phone and the type of damage. Screen repairs usually carry the lowest deductible, while full replacements for lost or stolen devices cost more.
- Manufacturer plans like AppleCare+ cover accidental damage and hardware malfunctions but generally do not cover loss or theft unless you specifically added that option. AppleCare+ deductibles for screen damage start at $29, while other accidental damage starts at $99.
- Credit card protection covers damage and theft but often excludes loss (meaning you physically misplaced the phone). Coverage limits are also lower than what you’d get from a carrier plan, so if you have a phone worth more than $800, the payout might not cover a full replacement.
If You Don’t Have Any Coverage
If none of these checks turn up active insurance, you still have options. Most carriers let you add insurance within a short window after purchasing or activating a new device, typically 30 days. After that window closes, you usually can’t add carrier insurance until you get a new phone. Manufacturer plans like AppleCare+ can sometimes be purchased within 60 days of buying the device.
Third-party phone insurance from companies like Asurion (sold directly, not through a carrier), SquareTrade, or Akko lets you enroll at any time regardless of when you bought your phone, though premiums may be higher and you might need to verify your phone’s condition before coverage begins. If your phone is older or lower in value, the monthly premiums and per-claim deductibles might add up to more than just paying out of pocket for a repair, so it’s worth comparing the math before signing up.