My real estate agent bought me a home warranty from American Home Shield when I bought my house in 2004. It saved my butt a bunch of times, including replacing two AC units (worth thousands), a range top, an icemaker, and a freezer that stopped working. I had to pay about $50 for each visit, but the warranty was absolutely a good deal for me. I just renewed it again for the fifth year and wouldn’t do without it.
I’m not sure how other warranty companies do, but American Home Shield has been awesome….and, no, I’m not an employee or agent for them and don’t have any connection to them other than being a very satisfied customer. Believe it or not, their are companies out there that do make their customers happy.
Eh? My AHS warranty covered the reefer, but specificially excluded the icemaker, and required proof of annual maintenance on the A/C’s — for a 20 year old house that I bought 2 years ago that’s near impossible. That’s why I subscribe to a Clark Howardism — extended warranties are bunk compared to a savings account, and non-renewed after one year.
You’re a lot luckier than me I suppose.
Some insurance companies offer Equipment Breakdown Coverage which could eliminate the need of the home warranty and the premium is pretty inexpensive depending on what you pay for the warranty. I have also been told that it does not impact the loss record of the Insured either if claims are filed. There is a flat per occuurnce ded but again depending on how much you pay for the warranty it might be worth looking into.
I don’t remember having any significant problems with exclusions. But I did have one small issue they didn’t cover – it had to do with the copper tubing from the outside fan to the third story attic for the AC unit. Coverage was limited in some way, so I had to pay a couple of hundred bucks to get that installed, but they were covering the entire cost of the outside fan and compressor. Three weeks after I moved into this house, both AC units crashed within days of each other. Ticked me off bad. AHS was on it and paid a bunch to repair them.
Within one year, the glass top on our range cracked, and they replaced it.
Our oven door hinges broke, and they couldn’t fix it, so they replaced it – but I paid a little more to upgrade their allowance.
I can’t say enough good things about how they treated me. Overall, it was worth every dime I paid for the warranty.
McMaster is much too busy grandstanding on meaningless issues before his upcoming gubernatorial bid. Call him when CNN puts home warranty stories in their 24-hour news cycle or if you can get him a friendly TV interview.
The warranty policies that have arbitration clauses are not negotiable for consumers, and most builders also won’t agree to strike arbitration clauses in their contracts. In fact many builders associations require or strongly encourage their builder members to use arbitration clauses and/or third party home warranty policies. The third party warranty company’s policy arrives after closing; some warranty co’s sites even state this as a benefit to the builder. No wonder, since the consumer then has not seen the illusory coverage, and the arbitration clause. Too many courts have enforced this ridiculous set up, now it’s commonplace for homeowners to be unable to avoid arbitration even if they never technically saw or agreed to the clause.
One of the reasons corporations use arbitration is because it keeps complaints out of the public’s view. Another is that they expect to win or at least greatly minimize how much they’d have to pay for defects, in arbitration.
Controlling how much their mistakes will cost them, and keeping the public in the dark, are not in the best interests of the public. But it sure is a sweet deal for builders and the warranty industry.
I anticipate some warranty co’s will make token payments of claims for awhile to try and take heat off themselves. But the industry’s getting a deserved black eye as more and more consumers find out that warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and that arbitration is a trap for consumers.
Glad you had a good experience. Some people do, and if no one ever did the company would eventually be shut down. But because warranty co’s are generally less regulated, and more secretive (arbitration is private), many complaints and unfairly denied claims never see the light of day. All of you might enjoy this site: http://www.homewarrantyreviews.com/reviews
Home builders have figured out a way to limit their liability when they leave out essential components on newly built homes. They “give” buyers a ten year warranty like HBW or RWC (there are many out there).
They claim this is some kind of insurance but the truth is no state insurance commissioner regulates these warranties because they are risk retention groups (self insrued). They all have a predispute binding mandatory arbitration clause that names the arbitration service that must be used, for instance AAA or CAS. The builders are repeat users. Arbitrators know who they are beholden to for their income and it sure is not the home buyer. I don’t know of any home owner that has been able to get proper repairs done through the warranty company nor one that has had any luck in a costly, lengthy arbitration.
Often a home owner will be awarded a small sum of money and the arbitration service and builder claim the home owner won even though the award is tens of thousands of dollars less than it would cost to do proper repairs. To top it off the home owner has no way to collect the small award they are given.
These warranties and forced arbitration clauses are a license to steal from home buyers. The largest purchase a family ever makes and there is NO consumer protection.
Everyone should support the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009. Please visit this site and sign the petition fairarbitrationnow.org
We all need to support this legislation that would give us back our 7th amendment rights to use our civil justice system that is far less expensive and way more fair that forced arbitration with an arbitrator chosen by the home builder.
FYI: These forced arbitration clauses are in everything you buy and every service you use today from home warranties to cell phones, doctor offices, credit cards, nursing homes, etc.
My real estate agent bought me a home warranty from American Home Shield when I bought my house in 2004. It saved my butt a bunch of times, including replacing two AC units (worth thousands), a range top, an icemaker, and a freezer that stopped working. I had to pay about $50 for each visit, but the warranty was absolutely a good deal for me. I just renewed it again for the fifth year and wouldn’t do without it.
I’m not sure how other warranty companies do, but American Home Shield has been awesome….and, no, I’m not an employee or agent for them and don’t have any connection to them other than being a very satisfied customer. Believe it or not, their are companies out there that do make their customers happy.
Eh? My AHS warranty covered the reefer, but specificially excluded the icemaker, and required proof of annual maintenance on the A/C’s — for a 20 year old house that I bought 2 years ago that’s near impossible. That’s why I subscribe to a Clark Howardism — extended warranties are bunk compared to a savings account, and non-renewed after one year.
You’re a lot luckier than me I suppose.
Some insurance companies offer Equipment Breakdown Coverage which could eliminate the need of the home warranty and the premium is pretty inexpensive depending on what you pay for the warranty. I have also been told that it does not impact the loss record of the Insured either if claims are filed. There is a flat per occuurnce ded but again depending on how much you pay for the warranty it might be worth looking into.
I don’t remember having any significant problems with exclusions. But I did have one small issue they didn’t cover – it had to do with the copper tubing from the outside fan to the third story attic for the AC unit. Coverage was limited in some way, so I had to pay a couple of hundred bucks to get that installed, but they were covering the entire cost of the outside fan and compressor. Three weeks after I moved into this house, both AC units crashed within days of each other. Ticked me off bad. AHS was on it and paid a bunch to repair them.
Within one year, the glass top on our range cracked, and they replaced it.
Our oven door hinges broke, and they couldn’t fix it, so they replaced it – but I paid a little more to upgrade their allowance.
I can’t say enough good things about how they treated me. Overall, it was worth every dime I paid for the warranty.
McMaster is much too busy grandstanding on meaningless issues before his upcoming gubernatorial bid. Call him when CNN puts home warranty stories in their 24-hour news cycle or if you can get him a friendly TV interview.
The warranty policies that have arbitration clauses are not negotiable for consumers, and most builders also won’t agree to strike arbitration clauses in their contracts. In fact many builders associations require or strongly encourage their builder members to use arbitration clauses and/or third party home warranty policies. The third party warranty company’s policy arrives after closing; some warranty co’s sites even state this as a benefit to the builder. No wonder, since the consumer then has not seen the illusory coverage, and the arbitration clause. Too many courts have enforced this ridiculous set up, now it’s commonplace for homeowners to be unable to avoid arbitration even if they never technically saw or agreed to the clause.
One of the reasons corporations use arbitration is because it keeps complaints out of the public’s view. Another is that they expect to win or at least greatly minimize how much they’d have to pay for defects, in arbitration.
Controlling how much their mistakes will cost them, and keeping the public in the dark, are not in the best interests of the public. But it sure is a sweet deal for builders and the warranty industry.
I anticipate some warranty co’s will make token payments of claims for awhile to try and take heat off themselves. But the industry’s getting a deserved black eye as more and more consumers find out that warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and that arbitration is a trap for consumers.
Glad you had a good experience. Some people do, and if no one ever did the company would eventually be shut down. But because warranty co’s are generally less regulated, and more secretive (arbitration is private), many complaints and unfairly denied claims never see the light of day. All of you might enjoy this site: http://www.homewarrantyreviews.com/reviews
Home builders have figured out a way to limit their liability when they leave out essential components on newly built homes. They “give” buyers a ten year warranty like HBW or RWC (there are many out there).
They claim this is some kind of insurance but the truth is no state insurance commissioner regulates these warranties because they are risk retention groups (self insrued). They all have a predispute binding mandatory arbitration clause that names the arbitration service that must be used, for instance AAA or CAS. The builders are repeat users. Arbitrators know who they are beholden to for their income and it sure is not the home buyer. I don’t know of any home owner that has been able to get proper repairs done through the warranty company nor one that has had any luck in a costly, lengthy arbitration.
Often a home owner will be awarded a small sum of money and the arbitration service and builder claim the home owner won even though the award is tens of thousands of dollars less than it would cost to do proper repairs. To top it off the home owner has no way to collect the small award they are given.
These warranties and forced arbitration clauses are a license to steal from home buyers. The largest purchase a family ever makes and there is NO consumer protection.
Everyone should support the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009. Please visit this site and sign the petition fairarbitrationnow.org
We all need to support this legislation that would give us back our 7th amendment rights to use our civil justice system that is far less expensive and way more fair that forced arbitration with an arbitrator chosen by the home builder.
FYI: These forced arbitration clauses are in everything you buy and every service you use today from home warranties to cell phones, doctor offices, credit cards, nursing homes, etc.