Do you feel lucky? Additional warranty for new camera?

[steve...]

I'm leaning towards not buying additional insurance for my new camera but I noticed that Square Trade has a study Digital Camera Failure Rates that's kind of interesting. With the manufacturer's one year warranty and the additional coverage through my credit card, I think I'll take my chances.

Highlights of the study include:

• On average, 10.7% of digital cameras fail within two years, and 15.6% are projected to fail within three years.
  
• Accidents account for slightly less than 40% of camera failures
  
• More expensive cameras tend to be more reliable than cheaper models.
  
• For Point-and-shoot cameras under $300, Panasonic cameras had the lowest 2 year malfunction rates (5.3%), and Polaroid and Casio had the highest malfunction rates (11.9% and 13.0%).
  
• For DSLR Cameras, Nikon and Canon were equally reliable.
  

[silvarios]

Those failure rates aren't so bad. Remember the failure rates on dual USB iBooks and Power Mac G5s? What about the Xbox 360?

[clay]

non direct PDF link here: http://blog.squaretrade.com/2010/03/digi...turer.html

thanks for posting, very interesting!

[Uncle Wig]

Interesting. I've been watching prices on the Pentax K-5, and I'm interested in the Square Trade warranty which includes accident protection. I've never had a camera die on me, but as you may remember I dropped my K20D and paid for the repair. Now it's intermittently displaying vertical lines in some shots, and the repair warranty is past. I assume it's related to the drop and repair, but of course can't prove it since it first appeared well after I got it back from the shop. I don't really want to spend any more money on it.

So now I can say I wish I'd had such a warranty.