Agree with BurnUnit about extended warranties. You are buying a rather expensive insurance policy for a situation where you are better off self-insuring. The range of costs and benefits of extended warranties is broad but even the best of them are designed and priced so that the "house" will make an overall profit based upon risk pooling and the worst (least coverage and most expensive) virtually guarantee a profit on every individual policy sold. Certainly some individuals will experience significant out-of-warranty repair costs but the majority of purchasers will never use their extended warranty and would have been far better off dumping that money into their 401K. Over time the money you didn't spend on extended warranties will cover those rare repairs AND will pay for a lot of new equipment.
I have purchased one extended warranty in my life and that was for a new car I purchased shortly before starting a PhD program because at that time I knew I would be going through a few years where an unexpected major expense could be problematic. The only thing I got with that warranty was peace of mind because I never needed it. Since then I have owned many new vehicles and other products without buying any extended warranty plan and my out-of-warranty repairs have been very infrequent and low in cost so the net "profit" to me has been in the many thousands of dollars.
An extended warranty is nothing but an insurance policy and if you take care of your equipment you are generally better off self-insuring for this sort of risk. If you do decide to purchase an extended warranty, in general only buy one provided by the company making the product. It is still expensive and not a great idea but at least it is likely to provide the expected coverage when something goes wrong unlike many third party companies which have great expertise in having exclusions which protect them against paying for most problems.
And I don't discount the value of "peace of mind". I am about to spend 20K installing a standby diesel generator because it is worth that to me to have a reliable no hassle source of backup power during windy below zero weather given the increasing lack of reliability of the mega-power company that serves my area. Forturnately for me I maintain my vehicles, home, and photo gear far better than they maintain their power distribution system. If they could put a broken power pole back together with duct tape they would happily do so.
Rodger
EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video
