Sadly a friend of mine had a Panamax surge protector for his Marantz amplifier, which was fried during an electric storm. To get the "up to $250,000 guarantee" he had to get a fire marshall to state that the cause of the Marantz failure was because the Panamax failing to do its job. The fire marshall said he can not be sure the equipment was plugged into the Panamax at the time and not plugged in afterwards. Making the guarantee worthless.
So read the fine print on these "surge protectors" - many aren't worth anything, and some reduce current so badly as to be worse than worthless.