Sky TV Insurance

[jojo2910]

Hi,

Friends of ours are thinking of getting Sky TV, which I don't have nor have ever had. In a conversation with the OH he seems to think that after your warranty runs out you have to do one of the following:

1- Pay huge fees if the box breaks or the dish needs re-aligning

2 - Pay insurance each month to prevent the above but this is around £50 a month.

My parents have sky and they know nothing of the insurance and have never needed to get sky to fix anything.

Is he right on either front?

[HotStuff]

As far as I remember around the end of your initial 12month contract you will be invited to take out insurance, I threw it in the bin, but I think it was about £7 a month. If you have to get an engineer to come out Sky will charge you £65 for the privilege, or something around that figure. If you do have problems, threatening to leave will quite often elicit a more favourable response

If I didn't already have it then these days I'd seriously consider FreeSat unless there was something I particularly wanted that was only available on Sky. Bigger upfront cost, but no monthly subscription. And then there's VirginMedia if you're in a cabled area.

[Glutton4...]

Our Sky+HD box went bang this summer. Our cheapest option was to sign up for their insurance at £99 for the year (payable monthly). That covered the box, cabling, LNBs and various other things. I was impressed because the box had already died, and they replaced it. As we are multi-room on my Parents' account this covers all their stuff too!

[smallblueplanet]

...If you have to get an engineer to come out Sky will charge you £65 for the privilege, or something around that figure. If you do have problems, threatening to leave will quite often elicit a more favourable response ...

I'd hope this would be your best response, if my box fails it will be mine...

[SueA]

If you're not on the full Sky+HD box & your old one goes they'll usually give you the SkyHD box free if you upgrade or threaten to leave as the others have said. Luckily we've never had a problem so far.
What you shouldn't do is take out insurance with any of the companies who phone you up pretending to be something to do with Sky & offering you insurance, I think the only one approved by Sky is Domestic & General but I'd contact Sky & ask them first when the warranty runs out.

[jojo2910]

If you're not on the full Sky+HD box & your old one goes they'll usually give you the SkyHD box free if you upgrade or threaten to leave as the others have said. Luckily we've never had a problem so far.
What you shouldn't do is take out insurance with any of the companies who phone you up pretending to be something to do with Sky & offering you insurance, I think the only one approved by Sky is Domestic & General but I'd contact Sky & ask them first when the warranty runs out.

I asked my mum if she anything about insurance as she has sky and her response was to tell me that she bought insurance from one of these so called agents over the phone. £75 out of pocket and no insurance documents. Parents tut!

[bubblewrap]

We have cable (virgin Ex NTL)
Our box went wrong and it was replaced FREE!

[Two_Sheds]

We (well HE) has had Sky+ for three years now, we refused the insurance. We have had frequent probs with the box, mainly failure to record (for no apparent reason) but Himself won't contact them about it so I don't know if it would cost us for a new box or not

[jacob marley]

I pay for the insurance my son who lives next door do's not had his box go down so called them out and was told call out fee £75 all in about 18 months ago for that he got a new box and the dish moved because it was not picking up a good enough signal hope this helps ..jacob

[Minty]

I have been with sky for many many years now but renew our contract every 12 months.
Mrs Minty and myself swap names on the contract every year and order the new contract through a cashback website(quidco) and with the cashback(£80 last time) we buy a years insurance for the skybox.

Oh yeah and we got £50 M&S vouchers off Sky....................."which was nice"

[Two_Sheds]

clever Minty

[Alison]

We have cable (virgin Ex NTL)
Our box went wrong and it was replaced FREE!

We're with Virgin too but I think that Sky has always been different in that you buy the Sky box whereas Virgin retain ownership of ours. This could be rubbish but I seem to remember something about this

[Minty]

We're with Virgin too but I think that Sky has always been different in that you buy the Sky box whereas Virgin retain ownership of ours. This could be rubbish but I seem to remember something about this

Spot on, virgin own and maintain the boxes whereas you own your sky box and are free to do what you like with it after the contract ends.

[green thing]

I will never use sky again
I bought a package from them called "pay once watch FOREVER"before free view
It cost £75.00 for the sky box and installation
we got two for payable channels free for 6 months and the free view channels
we just wanted the freeview channels only
after the six months was up we had the two channels cut off and a phone call
every week asking if we wanted to pay for any other channels
we kept saying no and just wanted the free view channels only
they also wanted our direct debit details which we refuse to give them for free view
then every month after that we got cut off and had to phone a premium rate
number to get the box back on again
we had no normal watchable digital TV signal or cable in the area after the digital switchover and the only option was sky
in the end we gave up and set up a direct debit with nothing to take out or so we thought!!
they took out 1p per month to keep the account active

we are now on freesat costs nothing per month no more sky sales phone calls
and you get some of the sky programs six months after they been on sky
we tried to get the £75 + 6p + call costs back from sky
they said the phrase "pay once watch forever" didn't form part of the contract
and was just an advertising slogan ?