Can you buy an iPhone without a contract?

I water damaged my iPhone but I lost a piece of it so I dot want to hand it in to verizon because they might be mad ( I lost the pie e that you take out to see if your phone is water damaged) and I was wondering if you can buy a new iPhone without a contract and just switch the number over to my new phone!

Nope. The Imei is embedded into the chipset and on the back of your iPhone. Also registered with Apple.
Why don't you just take your phone back to Apple and play dumb. Worst off, it will cost you $150-200 depending on the model.

Can you buy a toaster without toast? Of course! But it will be VERY expensive because the contract is suppose to pay off the $$$ for the phone. I went to various stores to ask prices and iphones without contracts can range from $500-$800 depending on the memory size. They are iphones, they WILL be expensive.

Yes, you can buy a phone without contract - it's typically about $400 more than the "with contract" price.

Also, Verizon doesn't care what you do to your phone, as long as you keep paying your bills and finish out your contract. They'd be more than happy to sell you a replacement (at full price). Ecstatic, even.

Of course. On virgin moible. But they might be pricey depends on which version you want

Well in this case, yes & no.

Yes you can buy off contract iPhones, cost is $400 more than the on contract option. As far as Verizon activating it, not sure.

If it was a GSM carrier, eg. AT&T you could buy the phone, swap SIMs & continue as normal with no carrier intervention.