What is always lost, but never found? Not an umbrella, anymore. It's your mobile.

It's estimated that 15 mobiles are stolen every one minute in Mumbai. Pickpockets have also become 'mobile' with their mobile-snitching techniques. It's time that you insure your favourite talking gizmo.

Small phones, big covers

A mobile's insurance cover saves against a variety of risks like fire, theft, riots, strikes and terrorist activity. But, many have a more comprehensive coverage bringing within sweep malicious damage, accident and fortuitous circumstances.

Are mobile owners only protected from risks? The United India Insurance Company says that owners or users can be saved from loss or damage risks. But most insurance policies do not give this protection. If you loan your mobile or a friend hires it for a while, the damage, loss or theft incurred during the process cannot be claimed.

Call drops

What is not covered under your mobile insurance scheme?

If there is damage due to war and nuclear peril, the insurance company is not responsible. If there is a holocaust, the assumption is that everyone will run for cover. Obviously, not for insurance cover.

Detention or confiscation by customs or any government authority means mobile insurance is also held back.

Left your mobile in an unattended vehicle? The insurance policy steers clear, of paying claim. However, you can be easily compensated for your mobile if you prove that the mobile instrument was stolen from a fully enclosed car, which was securely locked!

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A woman, who had mobile snatched by a motor-cyclist, as she was about to cross road got compensation, but one medical shop owner who placed mobile on counter for a moment, turned towards the shelf and found it missing was denied claim.

The reason was he had left it unattended, was negligent and no force was used to steal the cell phone. Carelessness and theft is not one and the same thing.

The list of exclusions is long. Some are man-made, some attributed to nature and some machine-made.

For example, if you overload the mobile, experiment with it involving abnormal conditions or cause loss or damage during cleaning, repair or maintenance the insurance company's responsibility ends.

Where atmospheric or climatic conditions, vermin or fall into water or fall from a water-borne craft damages the mobile, the claim is disallowed. If the mobile suffers damage due to mechanical and electrical breakdowns or has inherent defect, suffers from wear and tear or gradually deteriorates, no claim is entertained.

Some strange ring tones

Hello! If you have taken a general cover, and feel safe from thieves then a shock awaits you. Have you extended protection to misuse of instrument?

If not, then compensation may not be given. Guard against different worded meanings. Terrorist activity and misuse go hand in hand, everybody knows. But, if you just thought terrorists were taken care of, it may be asked whether "misuse" cover has also been paid for.

• How safe are mobile phones?

If the mobile is robbed from premises or property, force should have been used. But, where travelling by public transport a handset must have been forcibly snatched or physically stolen or taken with threatened force. Otherwise, the claim is defeated.

Once a woman was refused mobile insurance because there was no copy of FIR of police complaint. Only a non-cognizable report was lodged that somebody took it away, the insurance company said. The lady took the insurance company to the courts. The court ruled in favour of the consumer, rewarding her Rs 8,700 claim amount and compensation as well.

The premiums people pay

National Insurance Company, Oriental Insurance Company, New India Assurance Company and United India Insurance Company cover mobile phone insurance. They fix compensation equivalent to cost of replacement by new mobile of same specifications and capacity, including all taxes and duties.

If a mobile is worth Rs 7,500, the premium is Rs 150 now. The rate is Rs 20 per value of Rs 1,000 of sum assured. An excess of Rs 2,500 is charged for each and every claim processed.

Where mobile companies provide insurance, there are different schemes. BSNL offers insurance cover on Nokia and Alcatel mobiles for Rs 20 per month. BPL, Reliance and even Nokia had mobile insurance schemes, but all were withdrawn.

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Some private mobile companies may give free insurance cover but the fine prints says that battery, charger, external aerials, handset are not included, leaving one to wonder what is really covered under such schemes.

These tunes are not good enough

One handy tip for mobile insurance is to take a policy for one year.  As mobile rates are falling at a faster rate, premiums also keep becoming lesser and lesser. Nokia 2100, which cost Rs 7,000 initially, now comes for less than Rs 5,000 now.

Take a mobile insurance policy, when you go in for a household, jewellery or burglary cover, because there is scope for negotiation on all.

An office, which gets mobiles of employees insured, is given preference. Volume discount is also handed out, if 25 mobiles are covered.

It is estimated that there are 138 million people using mobiles in India. If you want to hear shrills and trills of the cell phone, not cacophony over insurance claims, know the fine print.

A mobile left on a car's bonnet, roof or in boot is not considered worthy of claim consideration. Guard your handset against such misdemeanours.

One bright suggestion made by a mobile-insurance-affected consumer is that the mobile should be attached to a tag and slung around the neck.

The insurance company also does not pay in case your mobile mysteriously disappears. Keep watching the handset, so that it doesn't, one day, vanish into thin air.

Meenakshi Subramaniam is a former IRS officer