Is a whole house surge protector actually worth it, or is it just luck?

I was in your shoes about six years back when a close hit killed the control board on my furnace and my TV in the same afternoon. My brother in law two doors down didn't lose a light bulb. What I learned after calling an electrician out is that the path the surge takes matters more than anything. His feed comes in underground, mine is overhead, and my cable line was bonded poorly. So no, it's not pure luck, but it's not as simple as one house having better stuff either.

I had a whole house unit put in at the panel after that, a Square D one, cost me a few hundred with install. Since then we've had at least three strikes close enugh to trip it, the little window on it went red once, and I've lost nothing. I still use point of use strips behind the expensive stuff as a second layer because the panel unit only clamps what comes through the power lines, not a hit on the cable or phone side. Here's the honest part though. I also know a guy who had a panel protector and still lost his garage opener, because that surge came in on the doorbell and sensor wiring, not the power. Direct hits are a diferent animal entirely and nothing consumer grade stops those.

Before you spend anything, get the electrician to check your ground rod and bonding. Mine was corroded to junk, and fixing that was probably half the battle.

I've got a different take on the panel unit question. Had one installed when we rewired a few years back, a Siemens unit right at the main. Two summers ago we took a hit bad enough that it browned out half the street. I lost a dimmer switch and nothing else. My TV, computers, fridge board, all fine. So mine earned its keep, but I don't think it's magic and I wouldn't tell anyone it would've saved your stuff for sure.

Here's the thing people miss about your dishwasher though. Those are ussually hardwired in, not plugged into anything, so a power strip was never going to help there. Same with the garage opener in a lot of setups. A strip only protects what's plugged into it, and it does nothing for the door opener motor circuits or anything wired direct. What the strip people get right is that small surges happen all the time, not just during storms, and a decent strip on the router and TV handles those fine. The panel unit catches the big stuff coming down the line. They're not really competitors, they cover different jobs.

I'd also check your homeowner policy. Mine covered the dead electronics under a power surge clause and I didn't know it til the adjuster told me. Might be worth a call before you spend anything.

One thing I'd add is that those little strips are not all equal, and I learned that the annoying way. I had a bargain bin one behind my office gear for years and assumed it was doing something, then actually read the fine print and realized it was basically just a glorified extension cord with a breaker. If you go the strip route, check the joule rating and the connected equipment warranty on the box, because the range between models is enormous. Also worth knowing that the protection components wear out with each hit, so a strip that took a big event once may be quietly dead a year later with no obvious sign.

Sort of the opposite angle here, I'm renting so a panel unit isn't even an option for me. Last summer a storm took out my modem and the input on my TV while everything on power strips came through fine, which made me realize the stuff came in through the cable line, not the wall outlet. Is there anything a renter can realistically do about that side of things, or is unplugging the coax during storms basically the only move? Still figuring out what's mine to fix vs the landlord's problem honestly.

Update: I called an electrician about putting a whole house unit at the main, and after reading the dimmer switch story I'm pretty sold on it. But the renter's point about surges riding in on the cable line has me thinking. My router died too and that's on the coax. Do you protect that line separately, or does the panel unit cover it?