I'm about to work abroad, what are my options if my phone is lost or stolen?

[ck101]

Hello,

I'm going away for probably a few months for work, so I'm planning ahead to see if I can prepare for the worst case scenario. Let's say:

My iPhone is lost or stolen in South Korea, so I purchase a new iPhone, and I need to regain access to / activate my UK O2 mobile number on a new iPhone while in South Korea.

Is there anything I can do in advance to make this possible?

I was thinking that, if I have an eSIM, and I backup my phon regularly to iCloud then (as long as I can regain access to my Apple ID account), I could restore the iPhone from a backup, and then I'd perhaps be able to call o2 support to get it activated (based on other posts here, it seems I'd need to use Skype when calling o2 from abroad).

Does that sound like it would work? Does anyone have any experience of this?

I'd be utterly lost without my phone if this happened. Hoping that there are ways and means to get up and running, without having to travel back to the UK!

Any thoughts, suggestions, insights much appreciated!

[madasaf1sh]

@ck101 

Make sure you have insurance that will cover you overseas and check the fine print as you might fall foul of any time limits, we had someone in Gib who found out the hard way after been there for 2 months, lost their phone and was told no longer covered...

Also back up everything to iCloud, and take the additional storage plans..  and ensure Find my iPhone is turned on...

Also make sure you get an iPhone that is a Global Device..

You can get an esim from the myo2, assuming you have been migrated to the new platform.. 

South Korea is one of the safest countries in the world, so more chance of you losing your phone rather than it been stolen...

[ck101]

Thanks very much for your response. The questions are, is an eSIM included in an iCloud backup? And once restored on a new iPhone, can it be activated while in a foreign country / not on the o2 UK network? Is this known to work?

[madasaf1sh]

@ck101 

No it isnt included, in any icloud back up.. 

And people have reported it has worked abroad but no guarantees, as you are at the mercy of the local network..

[ck101]

Ah ok thanks. So once abroad, if I lose my phone, the only way to activate my o2 number on a new iPhone is to return to the UK. I didn't even think about whether an eSIM would work over there or not. Many thanks again. 

[madasaf1sh]

Yes an esim will work. and as I said people have activated an esim overseas, but its pot luck...