The production of new cell phones are a big environmental culprit and contains conflict minerals such as cobalt. To challenge the "wear and throw away" consumption, we are launching Refurbly Care, Sweden's first insurance for used mobile phones.
Why are we launching Refurbly Care? We want to make getting a used mobile phone as smooth and safe a purchase as buying a new one. This is another big step in that direction!
More and more people are buying used mobile phones today, but the insurance for these phones has not kept up with the development.
Home insurance policies that usually cover mobile damage have a tendency to undervalue mobiles. A 4-year-old mobile phone that cost SEK 10,000 when new is today valued by insurance companies at only SEK 1,000. That's a value reduction of a whopping 90%!
The real market value of the mobile phone is approximately SEK 4,000.
The insurance companies use a calculation method (depreciation) based on the year in which the phone was purchased or manufactured.
This might have worked 10 years ago when mobiles developed at a much higher rate and lost their value faster, but nowadays mobiles hold their value much longer. This is a heavy blow to the circular economy.
From before, Refurbly offers a 2-year warranty on their products. We are now developing by also launching our own insurance.
In this way, Refurbly takes care of the entire cycle: from sales to follow-up with the customer via insurance in Sweden.
With the insurance, additional security is created in choosing used. Buying used mobile phones is an important contribution to the environment, as a newly manufactured mobile phone contributes to 86 kilos of waste per phone.
For the year 2020, premium income was SEK 18 billion for home and villa insurance. The number of home insurance cases has increased in recent years, and a large proportion of them are mobile damage cases. This can both explain the insurance companies' reduction in the value of telephones and the need for good insurance options from an environmental perspective.
We Swedes produce around 466 kilos of household waste per man in a year. By buying a used mobile phone, you can save waste that corresponds to almost ten percent of the waste you otherwise generate every year. We therefore think that it should be a matter of course to reuse the mobile phones that already exist.
The insurance is available in our webshop and costs only SEK 495/year. The deductible is SEK 199 and covers everything from theft to screen breakage and other damages. Refurbly carries out damage management and repair of all broken phones, which creates a frictionless and easy flow for you as a customer.
We believe that Refurbly Care an affordable alternative - partly because many home insurance policies with all risk (drull insurance) have a deductible of as much as SEK 1,500 (!) and have very aggressive age deductions.
