What usually happens if he is an ASA is that they buy, fit & cover the whole lot for 12 months themselves. Nothing to do with Sky except the card that is in your box which you pay direct to Sky. They will claim the cost of the box back to Sky and usually get a small commission for getting a new subscriber. So the box is not Sky's box and as such they will not cover it as that falls on the ASA. If however you have problems in the future they will probably help you out with a free service call just to keep you subscribing. Like I said Sky standard installs use the new flow stb's, the model you have may have been new but old on the shelf if you know what I mean. Cheers, Franc
p.s. ask them if they have a Panasonic instead!