where i work, lightning damage, liquid damage, self-repair, and insect/animal contamination are 4 situations where we refuse the repair, even if it's a cash service tag. often with these, you fix one problem, and find 5 others. with lightning damage, lightning goes wherever it darn well pleases. it's not uncommon to see a blown fuse, a bridge rectifier shorted, any or all input chips shorted, any microprocessors dead, and any number of other random devices shorted, open, leaky, etc.... for instance, with a TV, it's likely the power supply, CPU, HDMI ports, tuner,TCON, and backlight inverters are all toasted. it could even damage the panel itself. by the time you track down all of the failures and replace parts you could have bought a couple of new ones. panels often cost more than a new TV.