I've seen lots of lightning damaged equipment; the most common is when lightning hits a power line somewhere in the vicinity; a big voltage surge is applied to all the lines simultaneously and when it gets to your house ("the target") the nominal voltage is correct - but it's also a few thousand volts above ground potential. This is hard on equipment - and if that equipment has a connection to ground through the phone lines, TV cable, water pipes, etc. then it's going to die a horrible death. Keep in mind that sparks will jump about 1 inch for each 40Kv; lightning strikes can be a couple of orders of magnitude more so just being sort of close to a ground is a bingo.
Direct hits are fortunately rare - and also very devastating. The only protection against these is to be somewhere else when they happen. Close by hits can be protected against (mostly) with spark gaps at the meter base followed by big beefy MOVs in the breaker box - immediately following the main breakers. Those spark gaps and MOVs must be connected not just between the hot wires, but between any and all combinations of hot, neutral, and ground wires. And make sure you've got at least one ground rod sunk fully into the ground; three are better. Connect a nice HEAVY conductor between your earth ground and the breaker box ground.
This will substantially reduce your exposure to lightning damaged equipment. If you want to be fully protected - buy full replacement value coverage insurance. Lightning is a force of nature that laughs at the puny humans; search for images of houses that took a direct hit and you'll see what I mean.
PS: MOVs self sacrifice as they burn up the unwanted joules. When they've dissipated all the joules they can, they're no longer effective. One big zap or a bunch of tiny zaps will use one up. If the protection they offer is important to you, you'll need to replace them on a regular schedule.