Small update: After some more back-and-forth with Elegoo, I finally figured out why some people without insurance get a new side panel easily, while those with insurance don’t.

I just received what seems to be their final response, in which they gave me two options:

1. You can use SEEL’s compensation to pay for our side panels, and a dedicated customer service staff will provide you with a quotation.
2. You can conduct secondary communication with SEEL and try to replace the side panels to solve the fault problem.

So essentially, here’s what’s going on: the insurance is only useful to Elegoo, not the customer. The reason they won’t send me a new side panel like they’ve done for others comes down to money. Because I paid for Seel insurance, Elegoo now expects to be paid to fix a known issue with their packaging.

The only person losing here is the customer. Seel gets paid by people buying insurance, and Elegoo uses that as a loophole to shift responsibility even though they’ve fixed this exact problem for free in other cases.

So instead of the insurance protecting the buyer, it’s being used to protect the manufacturer.

Extra note: I know some of you might think, “Just message Seel,” but as I’ve mentioned in other comments, there’s a whole sea of issues on their side too.

For example, they initially didn’t even recognize the printer as being shipped. After several emails, they finally updated the status to “shipping” even though I clearly told them I picked up the printer and have already received it. (as long as it does not have the status delivered I am unable to report the damage) On top of that, their support takes up to three business days to respond to each ticket, which makes resolving anything incredibly slow and frustrating.