Home Warranty – Are they worth it?

[Frank S.]

A couple of months ago we closed on a house and it had a home warranty through AHS. We had issues with our hot water heater that took almost 2 weeks and a lot of money out of our pocket. Today, we had issues with our AC and they barely cover anything. Worthless and very poor customer service from that company.

What is your experience with home warranties – are they worth it – of did they (sellers) purchase from a bad company?

[Bryan Blankenship]

Short answer: No. Long answer: Noooooope. LOL

Seriously, it depends on a few factors: 1. Age of the house and any updates done, 2. How much the policy is (often you can just set aside the funds you would spend on a policy for needed repairs and you actually spend LESS money overall). 3. If it's a rental, how patient are your tenants?

I have 9 bad experiences with warranties for every good experience. Usually something happens to the HVAC at the changing of the seasons, then you have to use one of the warranty company's approved vendors and wait for them to actually be able to schedule with your tenant, then they come out and diagnose and it's another two weeks before they come back to really fix it and they end up doing a bad patch job and have to come back out 2 months later, etc.

Also keep in mind the limitations of a warranty. Know what is covered and what isn't, and how the warranty company can disqualify something you believe SHOULD be covered. Hopefully you have better luck with them than I've had! :)