Vape Insurance: Protecting Your Batteries, Protecting Yourself

Vape Insurance: Protecting Your Batteries, Protecting Yourself Vape batteries may be batteries, but they aren’t like any Energizer or Duracell AAA that you buy at the grocery store. These are genuinely potent cells, each of which has to be handled with the greatest of care. At our vape insurance brokerage, we strongly believe that e-cigarette battery manufacturers should be allowed to upgrade their hardware.

That way, they could increase consumer safety. Unfortunately, current FDA regulations require any tobacco products to undergo extensive multi-million-multi-year process to get their product approved as a “new tobacco product”. We also believe that all vaping devices should have operating instructions, so we’ve put together some battery safety tips below.

When It’s Time to Replace Your Batteries, Replace Them We understand if you don’t want to replace your batteries: it’s an extra cost, the more that you have to do. If you’re like many of us, you do everything you can to extend the life of these batteries. However, they do eventually run their course, even the best ones.

Each battery only has so many cycles within them. If you use your batteries quite a bit, you may notice that they’ve begun to lose both strength and capacity. As soon as that happens, you’re better off just replacing them.

We’re often asked: “how long should my batteries last?” obviously, it depends on how often you use them, their quality, and so forth. However, a good rule of thumb is to start thinking about replacing your batteries after six months of use. Then, if you still haven’t replaced them one year after you bought them, replace them. If it’s been longer than a year, go to replace them now. Some vape shops may even recycle the batteries for you.

Too Hot, Too Cold As of this writing, it’s August. That means that many places in North America will have their hottest temperatures of the year. All of that nice weather means it’s a great time to go out and enjoy your vaping products. However, if it’s too hot, you want to be careful about using them. When the temperatures get really high, it can weaken your batteries.

The heat affects them, aging them quicker than if you’d used them exclusively in more moderate climates. Sometimes, the heat can even cause batteries to vent.

To be clear, we aren’t just talking about where you use your batteries, but also where you store them. Many of us have our batteries somewhere in our car for convenience.

But, on the hottest days, that’s not really a good idea. Vehicles can get extremely hot during the summer, which could weaken the batteries without you even using them. By that same token, you want to be careful about using your batteries in very cold weather as well. They can also lessen your battery’s capacity. A decent rule of thumb: treat your

batteries like you would treat your iPod or phone. Don’t put your batteries anywhere you wouldn’t put your phone, temperature-wise.

The Right Charger, the Right Way You’re busy, you have a lot to do – the last thing you have time for is to sit and watch your batteries charge. We understand that. However, leaving your batteries totally unattended while they charge isn’t a good idea, either. Plenty of us have let them charge overnight, only to awake to fully charged batteries. Doing that once or so might be all right, but you don’t want to make it a habit. These batteries are genuine electronic devices, so bad things can happen. We always recommend keeping them around while they’re charging. We’re not saying that you have to stare at them each moment while they charge, but you might want to have them charge while you’re watching TV, eating dinner or something like that when they aren’t charging, you may want to put them in a case.

Yes, we said to put them in a case. Sure, it can be more convenient to just stuff your batteries in your pockets or pack them away in a bag when you aren’t using them. But, that’s not good for the batteries, either (in addition to potentially being not good for your pockets or bag). See, these batteries could vent or even blow up should you have some kinds of metal in your pockets or bags. That’s not good for anyone. Plastic cases tend to be quite cheap, too, as you can find some very inexpensive ones. For just a few bucks, you can make sure that your batteries are safe. These plastic cases tend to fit easily into any bag or even your pocket, too. Some vape shops give them away with a battery purchase.

Be Smart You’ve probably heard the phrase “if something looks too good to be true, it probably is” a million times in your life. That’s true for vape batteries as well. You always want to be on the lookout for counterfeit vape batteries. You know that Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and other brands of vape batteries tend to be the most expensive. So, if you see these vape batteries (or batteries of similar quality) available for very small amounts of money, then you have to know something’s up with them. They may be rewrapped and rewrapped batteries which would be excluded from coverage by certain vape insurance companies.

Beyond simply using the price of the batteries to determine whether or not they’re legit, take the vendor into account as well. Reputable vendors go to a lot of trouble to make sure that they aren’t selling counterfeit batteries. It’s their business, they’re in charge, so they want to make sure they have the best products to keep their customers coming back. If someone gets hurt by a counterfeit battery (or really, just gets ripped off by having such a battery) then the vendor is liable to lose quite a bit of business.

Most vendors tend to be as helpful as they can be. For example, one recommendation we always make is to make sure that your vape batteries work as well as they should is to

keep their wraps pristine. The other most notable recommendation is to keep the vape batteries in a plastic case to avoid serious injury.

Another way of “being smart” is to make sure your batteries are “married.” That means that you use the batteries together, always in pairs from the very beginning. That way, they’ll be in the exact same place in their charge/discharge cycle. Otherwise, one could have more power than the other; one will get run down before the other, which can make the performance fluctuate wildly.

Vape Insurance Experts As a company that offers insurance, we want everyone who vapes to be as educated as possible. We’ve found that the more folks know about vaping, the better decisions they can make. It can increase consumer safety as well as consumer enjoyment. We’ve insured six billion vape sales since 2008 and that number keeps going higher. Between vape shop insurance e-liquid insurance and vape product liability insurance, we offer insurance for many different facets of the vaping industry. You can get a free quote at our site no matter where you are, as we’re licensed in all fifty states. If you have any more questions, you can contact us at (877) 678-0201.