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In London, a phone is stolen every six minutes, while in the US, 1.4 million devices were reported stolen last year. But the real danger is not in losing the handset itself.

In today’s world, mobile phones have become extensions of who we are. They store our finances, our memories, our identity.

Aditya Hindocha** **is VP of Account Partnerships at SquareTrade Europe.

One London victim lost over £21,000 in a matter of hours (including a £7,000 loan in his name) after criminals snatched his phone on the Underground and immediately accessed his financial and banking apps.

But most people don’t think about device protection until it’s too late – convinced that breaches, scams, and digital threats happen to other people, not them. That optimism is a luxury we can no longer afford.

From physical loss to digital risks

Today, traditional phone protection typically covers cracked screens, water damage, and the cost of replacing a lost device. That made sense when devices were largely communication tools. But the risk and protection landscape has moved on since then.

The truth is our devices play a pivotal role in today’s world. We need them to live, work, connect, and play, as they are gateways to our entire digital lives. Almost two-thirds (64%) of Brits say they’d feel disconnected from their lives without their phone, yet 72% don’t possess device insurance, according to SquareTrade research.

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This disconnect highlights just how severely protection has failed to keep pace with modern risks. Hardware has evolved into sleek, durable machines. But device protection is yet to evolve to keep pace.

What’s missing is cover and protection for the digital assets and identities stored within a device. And if nothing changes, that gap between the threat to our digital identity and the protection we’re currently afforded, will only continue to widen.

Closing the gap

The future will require protection that spans both physical and digital assets, anticipating (rather than reacting to) risks, and restoring consumer confidence quickly when things go wrong.

At its base level, protection needs to be simple and easy to understand. 43% of UK consumers find insurance policies confusing, while 59% struggle to find appropriate coverage.

The current coverage options are fragmented, split between device insurers, banks, and cybersecurity tools, creating a critical protection gap for consumers. That means when a device is stolen, victims are forced to scramble between providers, with one replacing the handset, while​ ​multiple others address the fraudulent charges.

Integration is one of the missing pieces. There should be a singular solution for consumers to enact should the worst happen.

British consumers agree. 94% say they value models that bundle cover into the services they already use. This offers a unique opportunity for protection providers to forge the path for a solution that supports the needs of today’s consumers.

Technology also plays a major role in this shift. AI will enable future solutions that flag malicious behavior before fraud occurs, lock snatched devices automatically and provide smooth recovery and restoration.

This would move protection from a reactive, fragmented service to a proactive, seamless safety net, adapting in real time to how people live and work with technology.

We are already seeing providers developing solutions to address specific pieces of this threat puzzle. Revolut has recently launched Street Mode, a location-awareness feature that recognizes when users are outside of their trusted areas.

Once triggered, it automatically delays bank transfers and requires additional biometric verification, creating a critical window to stop thieves who’ve stolen an unlocked phone from draining accounts before the victim can react.

This kind of adaptive protection is what’s needed, but the broader challenge remains. How do we extend this kind of intelligent protection across all digital assets?

Smart devices, smarter threats

An integrated approach will become increasingly important as our technology evolves at rapid pace. Manufacturers continue to push the boundaries in their quest to bring something new and innovative to the market, from AI enabled devices that anticipate our every need to sophisticated wearables that merge physical reality with digital worlds.

In parallel to this, the threat landscape is also growing. Fraud is now one of the fastest-growing crimes globally with phishing attacks, deepfake scams, and synthetic identity fraud moving from fringe concerns to daily realities.

And AI-enabled scams and identity fraud are quickly becoming the new norm, with AI creating entirely fabricated yet hyper-personalized personas that are increasingly difficult to detect.

Re-writing protection for the new digital world

The meaning of protection is changing. Once focused on broken screens and lost handsets, the problem today is much bigger than simply hardware. Protection must shift from reactive fixes for a single device to proactive safeguards that keep pace with modern risks, covering the digital aspects of our lives that matter most.

**We’ve featured the best secure smartphone.

*This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: *https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

Aditya Hindocha** **is VP of Account Partnerships at SquareTrade Europe.

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