I am thinking of using a home warranty company for a current rental I own and a soon to be second. I will be geographically separated from both properties so I will be unable to do any maintenance on the properties.
I have read reviews online and it seems that AHS (American Home Shield) has mixed reviews. I would expect any home warranty company to act in their own interest and not just accept every claim without scrutiny.
Is this typical for companies like this, or are these companies borderline scams? Anyone here have experiences, good or bad, that they would be willing to share?
When we bought our house (late 2013) the seller paid for the first year of any home warranty we chose. I did some research and settled on HMS National.
We’ve had to call them out a few times, once to repair the clothes dryer, another to look at the dishwasher. Cost us $100 per claim. They were pleasant on the phone when we called, and they approved all of the repairs the dryer repairman asked them for. He had to come out three different times, once to look at it and order parts, a second time to install the parts (and order additional parts), and a third time to install those additional parts. He basically replaced the entire dryer, save for the drum and the shell; I figure we saved at least $500 or $600 on the parts alone against the cost of a brand new one.
I actually asked the repair guy what it would take for them to buy us a new one and he said the warranty companies will only replace an appliance as a very, very last resort.
The warranty costs about $500 a year; our house is relatively old (built 1950) and almost all of the major systems are original or at least 20 years old. We feel like the furnace/AC could go at any minute and when that happens, we’ll be covered for that, and then we’ll probably not renew after that.
I’m sure there are tons of horror stories about any home warranty company, including HMS National, but I’ve have nothing but good experiences with them.
OTOH, if your properties and finances are in good order, you may be better off taking the $500 or whatever you’d pay a home warranty company annually and putting it in a savings account for when you need it, rather than relying on them. It’s my understanding they will generally contract the lowest bidders to do their repairs.
We got a free year when we bought our house. It was a bit run down at the time, and used American Home Shield several times and were happy enough to renew a couple of more years. They replaced a $4,000 heat pump without a fight. As time went on, they seemed to be much more reluctant to replace, and tried over and over again to repair. Also, some things covered by manufacturer’s warranties are not covered by them. And our “commercial” stove was not covered. A bit of a pain, but understandable. Eventually, we upgraded all of our appliances and cancelled the service.
Bottom line, not a scam, and probably has some value for houses with older appliances and infrastructure.
One of the warranty companies is advertising on the radio here. The commercial has a person explaining how her husband didn’t want to buy the warranty, and then their furnace, AC, range and refrigerator all went out (over a year or so), so now they’re getting the warranty.
To my thinking, at this point they’ve replaced most of the big ticket items - I can’t see where they’re going to be getting value for their money at this point.
We had a year from American Home Shield as part of the purchase, under the theory that it would cover any spit & bailing wire fixes that the previous owners did to get it to look sale-ready. For that purpose, it was a good idea. We had them send an appliance repair guy out in the first week and fix the diswasher/disposal, and later had them send an electrician to fix some sketchy plugs and switches that weren’t working right.
However, outside of that, we didn’t have any other expenses that weren’t things I couldn’t fix easily, and since then, most of what we’ve had to get replaced/fixed falls more under the umbrella of “renovations” rather than repairs, so I doubt they’d have been covered anyway.
At any rate, we haven’t paid anywhere near a total of $3000 in home or appliance repairs over the 7 years we’ve lived there, so I think discontinuing it after the initial period was fiscally a prudent move.
Another vote for “Not a Scam but you get what you pay for.”
They would come out and fix things, but their modus operandi was to fix the bare minimum to get it working again. There were times I really wished they’d let me pay a little extra to have a job done “right” but the choice was to have it done their way or pay for the entire thing myself.
One time our AC stopped working. The repair guy told us it was probably the compressor starting to fail but by recharging it he was able to get it working within spec so that’s all he was allowed to do. A week later the compressor did die and when the same guy came out to replace it he had to charge us for the new coolant because under the plan you’re only allowed one coolant recharge per year and he’d just done that the week before.
That wasn’t my experience, but it could have been because of a difference between plans for all I know. We had AHS for a year because the seller included it with the purchase of the house. The inspection revealed that the ancient furnace had cracks which made it hazardous and necessitated its replacement. We wanted to put in a high-efficiency furnace because continuing to vent through the chimney was probably going to cause it to collapse, we wanted to pay less to heat the house, and there was a tax credit for high-efficiency devices at the time. AHS (understandably, except kind of for the chimney part) didn’t care about any of that and would only pay for a standard furnace. They agreed, without any badgering, to send us a check for the cost of the standard furnace.
We didn’t renew, though, because it wasn’t worth it. The amount they paid for the furnace wasn’t that much more than we’d have to pay them per year. Also, I prefer to get things taken care of before it’s an emergency. When we replaced the fridge, for example, it wasn’t because it was dead. It was because it was from the 80s, wasn’t working too great, and was using $40 a month in electricity. I can’t see them okaying a replacement in that situation.