01/06/2002

Revealed: the UK’s most bizarre way to wreck a laptop

Dropping a laptop off a bridge into a river has been voted the most bizarre way to ruin your portable computer, according to the UK’s number one laptop insurer, Complete Computer Cover.

The company, which insures 75,000 laptops and PCs every year, decided to analyse its claims data over the last five years after staff started a league table of the strangest and most interesting ways in which people had managed to destroy their machines beyond all repair.

The most disastrous demise was deemed to be the claim of a Yorkshire university student who provided a highly-detailed diagram showing how he had dropped his laptop off a bridge 20ft down into a river after being pushed from behind by a friend.

Second spot in the computer catastrophe chart went to the schoolchild whose mum managed to smash the laptop’s screen by dropping an iron on it; third went to a person whose dog chewed through the cable causing the machine to short out (the dog escaped without injury).

Fourth was awarded to the woman who forgot she had put her laptop down on her drive and then accidentally backed her car over it, and fifth to a hospital worker who managed to spill a fast-food milkshake over the keyboard (a full list of the Complete Computer Cover Top Ten Laptop Demises appears at the end of this release and on its web site, www.completecomputercover.com – the web site also features a humorous video clip illustrating demise No. 4, the scenario of a laptop mistakenly getting run over).

Analysis of Complete Computer Cover’s data shows that as many as 60 per cent of laptop claims received are for accidental damage, with the remainder being for theft. Assuming there are 5 million laptops in circulation in the UK, about 100,000 will be damaged and nearly 67,000 stolen every year. Knocking or dropping a laptop is by far the most common accident (36 per cent) while the most thefts occur in offices and schools (12 per cent each).

David Milner, managing director of Complete Computer Cover, said: “As the UK’s premier laptop insurer we thought analysing our claims data to find the most bizarre ways of ruining a portable would be an effective way of getting the insurance message across to computer users everywhere.

“Specific insurance for laptops is a sensible option for businesses and individuals. Most businesses will have too great an excess to make it worthwhile claiming on their policies, if indeed a claim is even appropriate as most laptops will not be covered when they are taken off the business premises. Similarly, many personal laptop owners may well have listed their device on their contents insurance, but little do they know that once they use it for business, they are not covered.”

Complete Computer Cover Top Ten Laptop Demises: 1. Dropped off a bridge into a river
2. Dropped iron on screen
3. Dog chewed through cable
4. Reversed over by car
5. Spilt milkshake on keyboard
6. Left on car roof and dropped off
7. Fell down stairs
8. Water damage in hotel in Zambia
9. Book dropped on keyboard
10. Fell out of van
Ends For further information please contact Simon Williams or Jamie Sitzia, Band & Brown Communications, tel: 0117 927 2444 or email simon@bbpr.com. Notes to Editors Launched in August 1996, Complete Computer Cover was the first company to offer specialist insurance for the material loss and damage of computers, especially laptops. It now has more than 15,000 customers and a turnover in excess of £3 million. Its clients include individuals, SMEs, large corporations and educational establishments (50 universities and more than 2,000 schools).