I've always used an otterbox symmetry case, and have once lost my phone off the roof of the car... it was saved! But even if I had lost the phone in that accident, I did not make the mistake to not have a backup as the OP mentioned about the phone's owner. So easy to backup the phone to google or anything...

I had another phone fall off through the floor of my hotrod ('41 international truck) and got split in half somehow. Old flip phone... Good stuff