In the past 20 years, I've lost two receivers to what appeared to be lightning strikes. The latter one, a fairly nice Onkyo purchased circa 2002, would develop a nice stream of acrid black smoke within seconds of plugging it in. Of course, this was post-warranty. I had it plugged into a Monster power strip (which also got zapped) and attempted to use Monster's warranty/insurance against exactly this sort of occurrence.

Unsurprisingly, Monster denied my claim, saying they didn't see any lightning damage in the old power strip. Yeah, because it went straight through and blew up my amp. But they did send me a brand new power strip. W00t.

Now I've got everything plugged into an ostensibly nicer TrippLite surge surpressor, also with insurance against damage to your gear. We'll see what happens at our next regularly scheduled power surge.