April 15, 2008 Archives

An article on last night's Gadget Show caught my attention. With the abundance of digital downloads nowadays it's rather a minefield as to whether or not they are covered by your contents insurance. I've never actually bought any digital downloads and would much rather have the physical media in my hand. But, the article got me thinking "What if I did own some?"

I've checked my policy document and I'm still not certain whether I would be covered or not. The policy document doesn't specifically define digital downloads but in the section on General Exclusions it lists 'Date change and computer viruses' and has the following definition: 'Computers include hardware, software, data, electronic data processing equipment and other computing and electronic equipment linked to a computer.' That means that I'm not covered for data loss by date changes or computer viruses. Now, because it says that these exclusions apply to all sections of the policy I would think that it's probably fair to assume that the definitions also apply to the whole policy. If that's the case, then digital downloads; as part of the data, would be covered for loss by theft or accidental damage.

I've just created a Twitter profile for myself. Anybody interested can follow me. Shockingly, 'Bowch' was already taken so I'm signed up as 'BowchUK'. In fact, further delving reveals that the 'Bowch' username is actually me when I signed up for Liberal Democrat updates back in January. Unfortunately, I don't know what email address or password was used and can't seem to recover it. So, I'm 'BowchUK' on Twitter.