"and I have never found I spent anything like the amount on repairs I would have paid for the extended warranty"

And me too; I just wondered what your thinking on the subject was.

However the big big difference betwen white goods & a car is the potential cost of repair. In the case of white goods, if the cost is more than half of the retail price of the goods the insurer will generally replace it thus if your washing machine packs up the most it will cost you is the £300 or so to buy a new one.

If the car engine packs up how much will it cost to fix? Potentially a new engine + fitting. Check out various postings on here as to how much repairs are costing.

Are they worth buying? Only you can answer that. The whole concept of insurance is that many pay in but only a few recieve payment back.

Do you have home contents insurance? Or life insurance? Or etc etc? Same principle. You are protecting your financial circumstances against a possible expensive event.

FWIW, my view is if the potential claim is more than £1,000 & the premium is less than 5% of this, it's worth insuring. You could do with checking with a dealer as to the cost of a replacement engine & box, fitted & compare this to the premium. Don't forget to deduct approx £100 off the premium if it includes recovery etc.

BTW, btw means "by the way" & FWIW is "for what it's worth"

Good luck in choosing correctly

The problem with white goods is people do not understand their rights under the sales of goods act or the eu 2 year directive if they did they would never buy these contrick almost worthless expensive insurance policies.

But white goods under the sales of goods act are actually covered upto 5 years so are televisions ,radios,cd players in fact all consumer goods.