Just need to share my story of a crappy deal dished out by VZW...I'm a longtime customer - 20+ years.  I use VZW whenever my employer doesn't mandate a different carrier. 

I recently purchased an iphone 5s for my daughter and added it to my plan.  Since she's 13, I thought insurance was a no-brainer and committed to that as well.  As it turns out, insurance was a good idea but for her parents rather than her.  Neither my wife nor I was able to be at home when the phone was delivered by FedEx so we signed the doortag to allow the driver to leave the package.  We've lived here over 12 years with dozens of packages delivered and never had a problem so didn't think much of it.  I know BAAAD idea - we won't do it again!  Naturally, the package was stolen - FedEx e-mailed a delivery notice but no box on the porch.  I filed a police report and a complaint with FedEx (the driver didn't even attempt to hide the package - on his own admission it was left leaning against the front door in plain sight from the street).  I have little hope though of either of those avenues panning out.

My expectations for Verizon were way out of line with what I got from them - call FedEx; call Assurion (the insurance company); and tough you're out of luck...let me tell you about our monthly purchase plan for another phone.  In short nothing.  When I filed the report with my local PD, they said they would put the phone's serial number on their missing/stolen list and suggested that I have the carrier do the same.  I had already spoken with VZW (so-called) Customer Service three times at that point and never been told that there was such a list much less did they offer to put the S/N on it!  When I asked them to do it the rep said OK , I think we can do that.  They never said or offered to watch for someone trying to activate the phone.  I'm not a tech whiz so I was hoping for some guidance on what could be done to help me get the phone back but nothing was offered voluntarily.  Nobody ever even asked to see the police report to see if that was true.  I'm pretty sure now that they never planned to do anything.

Now the real rub...I signed up for insurance on that phone in good faith - hoping not to need it but willing to pay for the peace of mind.  I have had insurance on my own phone for three years - although never making a claim but still always felt that it was money well spent.  No history of claims (bogus or otherwise) - the policy allows claims twice each year...how many people are out there "losing" their phones twice a year to get a new one for the price of a deductible?  Never done it.  But that doesn't matter, the phone has to be activated and covered for 30 days prior to a claim being made...VZW, hiding behind a BS technicality with no regard for the customer's track record. 

There's the sad part now here's the funny part...I asked one of the reps if I would still have to pay the insurance on the phone I never received.  This appeared to stump her and she had to put me on hold to check.  THAT was apparently even too much for VZW because when she returned she said probably not.  Well there's that...!

The bottom line is, I would have expected that Verizon would have offered up their experience in situations like this (VZW has dealt with stolen phones before?  I never have!) to help us recover or replace our phone.  At the very least, that they would have made it possible to file a claim for replacement of the phone at the cost of the deductible.