What Your Team Sees When a Device Comes In Broken: Inside Lighthouse

A student walks into the office with a cracked Chromebook. Your technician takes the device, opens a browser, and files the claim in about ninety seconds. Forty-eight hours later, AKKO approves the repair. The device goes out for service, comes back fixed, and returns to the student — all at $0 cost to the district.

That's the entire cycle on your end. Everything between "claim filed" and "device back" happens on AKKO's side of the line. The one screen your team sees for all of it is Lighthouse, AKKO's claims platform built for K–12 technology directors and their staff.

What Lighthouse Does

Lighthouse is where your team files claims, tracks repair status and manages every covered device across all your schools. It runs in a browser; no software to install, no separate login for each building. Your staff log in with their district credentials, search by serial number or asset tag, file the claim, and hand off the device.

The platform shows you:

• Every claim filed this term, across all campuses
• Current status for each device — submitted, approved, in transit, repair complete
• Shipment tracking when devices go out for mail-in repair
• A searchable directory of every covered device and enrolled student

No spreadsheet to update, no email thread to the vendor, no separate system for elementary versus high school. One platform, one view, every device.

Filing a Claim Takes About Ninety Seconds

Your technician or front-office staff member opens Lighthouse, clicks "File a Claim," and enters the serial number or asset tag from the broken device. The system pulls up the device record — model, assigned student, coverage status. Your staff member selects the peril (cracked screen, liquid damage, won't power on, theft, loss), adds a one-line description if needed, and submits.

That's the file. AKKO approves the claim within 48 hours. Your team gets an email notification and sees the updated status in Lighthouse the next time they log in.

What Happens After You File

Once the claim is submitted, your staff hand off the device and AKKO handles everything downstream. Depending on the damage and your district's preferences, the repair happens one of three ways:

• Mail-in repair: AKKO provides prepaid shipping boxes and labels (up to 10 devices per box). Your team packs the devices, schedules a pickup or drops them at UPS, and Lighthouse tracks the shipment. Devices typically return in about a week.
• Local walk-in repair: If you prefer, send the device to one of AKKO's 3,000+ repair options near your district. Same Lighthouse claim file; the repair center invoices AKKO directly.
• In-house or district-preferred shop: Your own technicians or a local vendor you already use can handle the repair. AKKO reimburses parts and labor on approved claims. Your team submits the invoice through Lighthouse after the work is done.

For theft or total-loss damage, AKKO either sources a replacement device or pays the replacement value you chose when the plan was quoted. Coverage rolls to the replacement automatically; no second claim to file.

One Platform, Three Funding Models

Lighthouse works the same way whether your district funds the entire plan, families purchase coverage, or you run a hybrid model. The only difference is who pays AKKO — the mechanics of filing, approval and repair are identical.

District staff always file the claim in Lighthouse, even when a family purchased the coverage. You never ask a parent to log in, upload a receipt or call a claims hotline. The claim goes through your technology team, AKKO handles the parent billing and support, and the device comes back fixed.

No Roster Upload Required to Launch

Lighthouse identifies devices by serial number or asset tag, so you don't need to build a roster before coverage starts. Student IDs or lunch PINs also work if that's how your asset-management system is organized. The directory exports to Excel anytime you need a snapshot for reconciliation or board reporting.

If you run the family purchase plan, families enroll directly with AKKO through a district-branded page. Their enrollment links to the device serial number they enter during signup. Lighthouse shows your team which devices are covered and which families are enrolled, but the payment, billing and parent communication all happen on AKKO's side.

The Line Between Your Team and AKKO

Your staff own two tasks: file the claim and hand off the device. AKKO owns everything after that — approval, diagnostics, parts sourcing, repair coordination, quality check, shipping and payment. When the device comes back, your technician receives it, checks it in through Lighthouse, and returns it to the student.

That division of labor is the design. You run the 1:1 program and the academic technology; AKKO runs the repair supply chain. Lighthouse is the handoff point, and the platform is built so that handoff takes less than two minutes of your team's time per claim.

Why This Matters

Most districts track broken devices in a combination of spreadsheets, email threads, repair-vendor portals and work-order ticketing systems. When a claim involves a parent fee, add your student-information system and your business office's reconciliation process. Lighthouse replaces all of that with one browser tab.

Your team files the claim by asset tag, AKKO approves it within 48 hours, and the repair happens at $0 cost to the district when the plan is school-funded or $0 cost to the family when they've purchased coverage. The platform shows you the status of every claim in real time, across every school in your district, without your staff ever picking up the phone to ask where a device is.

That's what your team sees when a device comes in broken. The rest is on us.

Get a group quote — a 15-minute call, a written per-device price within one business day.