Read the fine print....What happens when that lightning strike enters via the TV or Phone cable company media (unless you are all fiber), goes into a cable box, and then out the electrical connection seeking ground and subsequently frying everything along the way?

Not saying you aren't covered, but I'd be very surprised if there isn't a clause concerning you proving it was via the electrical service and not some other point of entry.

In the end, the ONLY safe deterrent to lightning strike is unplugging the appliance.

No....Lightning can easily jump the gap between the open contacts of a breaker.

Unfortunately, cheap protectors use MOV's for so called 'surge' protection. And 'surge' is such a misnomer. An MOV shunts high peaks in voltage somewhere, and it only does it once. Once it is hit, it no longer works, but you or your surge protector won't know that. They're really built for taking a spike out of minimal voltage like a dryer motor kicking on. Not 10,000 volts from a lightning strike. And guess where that MOV shunts the spike. To ground. Now, you're outlet is not directly connected to earth ground, but to ground via a bunch of romex cables in the walls with ground splices everywhere. So that MOV just sent the high voltage spike through all those grounds connected to all sorts of equipment before it finally reaches earth ground back at your distribution panel. You're almost better off, NOT having a cheap surge protector in use for lightning.

The best you can do is unplug them. The next best is to install a whole house protector at your panel box with a short direct connection to earth ground. The worst is to use surge protector strips.

Point of use surge protectors are useless and false security for lightning strikes. Might keep your washing machine from damaging your pin but that's about it. You need a short direct bond to earth ground for any lightning arrester device to have a chance.