Does it have to be an iPhone? A Moto E is both cheap and tough. My daughter has a Moto G (the new Es are pretty similar to her older G) and it's been dropped countless times without any problems. I've had a G for longer and it's held up to my drops as well.

Casper wants an iphone. She currently has an ancient Samsung (maybe a G2?) inherited from my mother, but before she killed it she had mr. flea's old iphone 4.

The E4 could work for Dillo, though. But availability with our existing service (Verizon) seems a little weird.

It does remain kind of charming when the French speakers on a conference call say "Blah blah blah." It's more like "bluh bluh bluh", and I imagine it's accompanied by a Gallic handwave.

Casper wants an iphone.

It might be cheaper to buy an iPhone from, say, Best Buy (make sure it's compatible with your carrier) and then have Verizon activate it. That's what I did with my iPhone SE.

Also, Consumer Reports (I think) had an article recently on when an extended warranty was worth it for cell phones. If your kids are drop-prone that might be something to investigate. My recollection is that there are lots of loop-holes and gotchas involved.

We buy Otterbox cases, so dropping on the ground has not (yet) been a problem. There's probably no warranty for "I left it on the bus"!

I just bought an iPhone SE from Wal-Mart for $159, to use with a no contract Straight Talk plan that costs $35 a month. That's as cheap as I've seen available for an iPhone.

flea, certain credit cards have lost or stolen goods coverage, if you pay for the item with that card. You may want to investigate if any of your cards offer it as a perk. It's not super long--90-120 days I think, but it may prevent at least 1 hit to your wallet.

The free phone promos have gone the way of the dodo bird. The trade-off is that plans are (theoretically) cheaper. Used phones are certainly an option, but as Teppy said, make sure they're compatible with your carrier. The $15 per month for 2 years on a new phone is essentially a no-interest payment plan. You're paying the same price as you would upfront, which puts the U.S. in line with the rest of the world. (My Italian family was amazed that we could get free phones, but then they saw how much we paid per month for service and laughed.) iPhones are unfortunately the most expensive phones out there.

edit: What Matt did may work for you. Don't activate it on Straight Talk though; take the phone into Verizon and have them activate it on your plan.

I got my iPhone used from a local fix it guy. He takes trades in and does refurb work. Worth asking around.

I survived the doctor! We negotiated which referrals I would go for and settled on about a 3rd of what he wanted. He was pretty funny, said he wouldn't bother with one of the tests because I would just refuse to take statins anyway. Guess he is learning. I'll see what my blood looks like later, probably before he does since I have access to the system and will check often.

Depending on how strongly you feel about staying with Verizon, T-Mobile's Jump insurance does cover lost and stolen as well as broken. You might want to see if it's feasible, especially since they get way cheap with multiple lines (grumble, grumble, no special plans for single with no kids. Jerks).