Although it may have happened, in the many years we have been selling this I personally never heard once of the handle breaking. It certainly would not break from normal use. I suppose it could get damaged by some other object if you're storing them with excessive weight on the plastic handle. Even then, it would need to be a lot of weight. You should not have any issues with the handle or any issues with the paddleboard as they are made with top-notch quality. These are made in the USA and the quality control lifetime has is second to none on their water craft. It's important to buy something that you know will really last and lifetime does not make a product that is designed to fail. That goes for these paddle boards. They are solid pieces of equipment.