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The home warranty company I currently use the monthly fee is 57 dollars and the call out fee is 100 dollars...trying to see if there are better deals out there, and if mine is horrible.
We get an appliance warranty through the electric company. It is either $5 or $8 per month. I think there is no deductible unless my wife paid it and did not tell me about it. that has proven very worthwhile. they replace nearly every piece of our washing machine twice, some very expensive Bosch dishwasher parts, the dryer control panel, there were a few other things.
I found the American Home Shield policy to be a complete waste. There was a lot of red tape and fine print. It came with my home purchase, but I dropped them when the policy expired. Instead I squirrel away $300/mo to use for home repairs and appliances.
First American Home Warranty is who we use. The cost is dependent on where you live. We pay $40 per month and a $65 service call charge. We like them. They have been great for us. We've used them for 8 years or so.
I found the American Home Shield policy to be a complete waste. There was a lot of red tape and fine print. It came with my home purchase, but I dropped them when the policy expired. Instead I squirrel away $300/mo to use for home repairs and appliances.
Would you mind elaborating? We are renting a home with an AHS warranty and have been waiting almost 2 months for the air conditioner to be replaced (after 3 repair attempts with the contracted vendor). The homeowner has kept us in the dark about what's going on, but I suspect there's some kind of deductible to be met.
I used three different big-name home warranty companies.
The first one was pre-paid for a year when I bought the house and I extended it every year after that and paid for the annual inspections. One year they told me the HVAC was old and was going to fail and needed to be replaced. Obviously that's not covered under warranty, but they promised a good price. I said no, it's working fine and I'll just keep going until it fails, if ever.
The next year they had to add a small amount of Freon, said it was old and I should replace at least the AC system. I said no thanks again, and they canceled the policy the next month with the reason "sorry, but we don't want your business anymore" (Not those exact words, but close).
The next home warranty company did pretty much the same thing ( try to sell me upgrades and then canceled)
So I went with another national company. This one contracts everything out to local companies.
Maybe 6-7 years after the first company said the AC would fail, it happened.
local company for three simply refused to come out. They took my phone call, said they would come and didn't show.
After that, the phone receptionist would not schedule anything, said her boss was unavailable but he would call me back (never). I gave up after three weeks. I called the national company a few times and they said sorry - just keep trying.
I finally gave up and called a locally owned company to come out and replace the thing.
That's my experience with home warranty companies.
We dropped our service as it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Our water heater leaked but the first service person just said we had dumped the water so there was no repairs required. The second guy, stole the tools my husband had in the garage, while he installed our water heater which was presented to as being new. A year later when that one also leaked, we learned they had installed a refurbished heater which is why they refused to provide us with our normal User Book and receipt for purchase. Maybe this was particular to San Jose but I will not buy another contract.
We got a home warranty when we purchased our house. The realtor talked the young sellers in providing this. I was shocked when I found out they paid 700 or 900 bucks. I can't remember which but either way it was a complete waste of money. After we moved in our stove broiler would not work. Called the company and they stated it was a "pre-existing condition." I asked how they knew that and they simply said most stoves have broiler issues. Umm okay. We bought a new stove.
Then our dishwasher broke. They did send out a repair person and he put them on speaker phone. They kept asking the repairman if we had abused the machine. He assured them we had not. They agreed to the repair which cost us 50 dollars, I think (been in the house 8 yrs now). It took a week for the repairman to get the approval and then he could only order the parts from a specific place of their choosing. Took about 3 weeks to get the repair done. He told me if we were not using the warranty he would have been able to get it running that day.
Then our water pump went, called the home warranty company and water pumps fell under a "certain criteria". Our cost a 100 dollars. The well company that came out said the repair would be 95 dollars. I paid the guy. I wasn't about to go without water for weeks.
I found the American Home Shield policy to be a complete waste. There was a lot of red tape and fine print. It came with my home purchase, but I dropped them when the policy expired. Instead I squirrel away $300/mo to use for home repairs and appliances.
Yes. Everything you read about the home warranties sold by home inspection companies or through real estate agents indicate they are really nothing more than a way to increase commissions a little bit. If you read those warranty agreement entirely, they are horrible agreements.
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