Listen to "Lightning" at Post #42. He is the expert.

A search here at TOTV with the search term "surge suppressor" will turn up many, many comments.
My favorite video on this topic is at "Ask This Old House"
Here's the link.
How to Install Surge Protection - This Old House

Owned the last 8 years. Nothing. Could be blessed.

I'm an electrical engineer and will tell you, get the whole house surge suppressor. I have both the meter and power panel surge suppressors. What happens is a voltage spike will come down the line and enter your house. Think of it as a wave like you see at the ocean - that wave will bounce around your house until the energy (joules) dissipates, taking everything in its path if it's a bad one, and the repairs to appliances are relatively expensive. Power panel surge suppressor is inexpensive, I think I paid $40, and fits where a circuit breaker would go..

The whole house surge protection is an electrical insurance product, in a high risk environment. For the price, its worth the installation but pay it off in full. Treat the purchase as you would insurance. its not useful until its needed, then it will be worth it. However, since mother nature is involved, she doesn't always comply with all human desires of control and stability. . . so there will always be exceptions.

For the black and white thinkers, its not satisfactory because its not 100% with a failure rate, so there is ucertainty involved.
For the conceptual thinkers, and the feelers, there is a high ROI when needed, though there is uncertainty of need, there is a non zero probability of usage.

The non zero probability of use to cover 99.9 % of the expected scenarios is good enough for us

Yes i have one professionally installed coming in the house. dytech between meter and panel.

insurance guy