Making Phone Calls from a Different Device Let's assume that I know my device will fall in the ocean in 6 months, I'm not allowed to buy insurance, and my contract expires in 18 months. I'm also a terrible swimmer, and Michael Phelps won't get it for me.

I would think that you could reverse engineer the code and make your own phone calls from a different device, even without the sim card. You just need to be able to program it. 

I'm mostly curious if this has been done before and if it has a name. Are there any similar tricks/ideas?
If something like that should happen, you can just get your carrier to "port" your phone number to a new SIM card, and use that in the replacement/spare device. This is more or less the same process you use to transfer your number to a different carrier, but a lot simpler in this case. After all, they're the ones in control of what phone number goes with what SIM. Ask the carrier for a replacement SIM and they should be happy to oblige.