After a short recorded conversation where I had to state, for the record, what happened to the phone and other details, he told me he’d be sending me a check for the cost of buying a new phone outright ($299), plus sales tax, minus a bit of depreciation value (8%). So I should have a check for around $290 in 3 to 5 business days. Next week I should have a new iPhone.

I expect I’ll be shelling out an extra hundred bucks or so and getting a 16GB 3GS instead of another 8GB 3G, because why not? I can’t decide if I want to pay the extra to get the 32GB or not. That much space would be pretty much perfect for carrying around my music collection.

If your curious about insurance coverage for you iPhone, I obtained mine by calling my auto insurer (Nationwide) and asking about a “Personal Property Policy” for the device. They were confused by this at first, having never gotten a request to insure an iPhone before, but I prodded them a little to look into the issue, and they were able to write a policy for me.

The premium came out ot $35 a year, it covered “All Risk” and had no deductible or co-insurance.

I’ve carried insurance on my phone through the phone company for many years, having unfortunately broken phones before and been stuck. Back on Verizon, it was $6/month and had a $50 Co-Payment. The traditional insurer was a better deal by far.