if you do the yearly upgrade thing then, assuming you pay off half the phone before you trade it in, a $800 would really be $400. but over three years, you'd spend $1200 by spending $400 each year upgrading to the next phone. if you bought a $800 phone this year and put about $200 insurance on it, and paid it off in two years but kept it for three, you'd really only spend $1000 and then get a new phone that really feels like a new phone. So it's really up to you if you feel like saving that $200 is worth it. Personally, I'd go without insurance unless you're prone to breaking stuff. Then you're only spending $800 over two years, having no payments for a full year, and saving a lot more. Plus then after those two years, you can sell/trade in your phone and get a little money back. But then you have that "old phone feeling" for a whole year. I don't really think it's necessarily a good idea from a cost perspective for that reason, but you're not me so idk that might not be as important.