Consider for a moment how much of your life is actually stored o electronic gadgets? Think about it for a moment. Think of all those telephone numbers on your mobile phone, the email messages and addresses on your laptop and all those recent images on your camera.

You might even use a PDA (personal digital assistant) in which cas you will probably have all of your contact details stored in one place. Consider the impace on your life of suddenly losing one of these vital devices?

There is a high likelihood that, sooner or later, you will lose your mobile phone or it will become badly damaged or even stolen. Last year over 200,000 mobile telephones were put through a wash cycle in washing machines, over 600,000 were dropped into toilets and around 55,000 were left in the back seat of taxis. Have you recently backed up the data from your phone sim card. At the very least you should consider some cheap mobile phone insurance. While this can’t compensate for not having your data backed up at least you can get a new device without any fuss or expense.

Like moble phones, cameras are small, portable and easily damaged or lost. Modern, small, lightweight cameras are particularly susceptible to loss and damage. They are often dropped, they can sometimes have items placed on top of them making them easily damaged. Like mobile phones there is no way that camera insurance can compensate for the loss of images stored on the camera, but it is an affordable way to get yourself a replacement if your camera is damaged or lost.

For me the significant gadget in my life is my laptop computer. I rarely need to take my laptop away from home but around 17% of laptop ownere routinely take their laptops along when travelling which makes them more vulnerable to theft and damage. So how much of your laptop data is safely backed up to some form of secure media? If I lost my laptop it would be a complete disaster as this is where i store all of my images, emails and contact details.

As for other gadgets, some laptop insurance can’t ensure that your laptop will not be stolen or damaged but it can make it less financially painful to get a replacement.

I really recommend that you ensure that you routinely back up the data from all of your electronic gadgets. Then make sure you get yourself some affordable gadget insurance as this will at least enable you to get replacements quickly.