Good home warranty company?

Question

I have several properties with very old appliances. However, I've had horrible experiences with both American Home Shield and Total Protect Home Warranty. I am looking for a solid home warranty company, at least until the HVAC goes out. Does anyone have good experience with a home warranty company that they would recommend?

Thank you

Brandon Abbott · Answer

I agree @Dan Handford. They are worthless. It’s just part of the single family market.

Aaron K. · Answer

Most people never use home warranties, they have them but they are never used because it is generally cheaper to just "self insure"  You might try First American though.

Jiri B. · Answer

@Ben Kirchner I feel your pain with home warranty companies! I probably used 4 or 5 different ones and never had a good experience with any of them. I only had home warranty because it was offered by the seller's agent so saved me $400 for the first year when purchasing a property so why not. The only problem was, that renewing cost was double and depending on your plan, they also charged me $100 for every service call. After doing the math on the properties and the money i "saved" it was just not worth it.

They went out of their way to replace every possible part before replacing the entire item and every time, the issue was "something else" so i just kept paying and paying for the service calls. Most of the time, the warranty did not even covered the items (broken window, water leak outside of the property, parts of hvac etc). Or only covered part of the replacement.

It also took them 3 months to replace a non-working stove (faulty circuit board) so they kept coming back and ordering different parts. It was drop in stove, so when they could not get 20 year old part anymore, they had no choice to replace it. But the new one was 0.5inch wider so they had to cut the counter top and cabinets, which was not covered so they just left it the in the middle of the kitchen and i still end up paying for all that.

I no longer get or care about home warranty for investment properties. I can typically get those smaller items fixed for the price of the service call or even lower and its not worth the hassle.

If you are hoping to get the HVAC replaced or other appliances by them, it might work out unless it takes few more years and by then, you already spend that money on the home warranty and service call fees and they might not even cover the whole thing once it comes to replacing.

They are here to make money and they will go out of their way to replace parts before replacing the entire item.

Dan Handford · Answer

@Ben Kirchner All I can say is to stay away from 2-10 Home Warranty group...they are terrible too.

I think the sentiments of @Jiri B., @Aaron Klatt, and @Shaun Palmer are all about the same...home warranties are worthless...they are primarily used to make the buyer of a property feel comfortable buying a house when they don't know what they don't know may be wrong with it. However, upon trying to use the home warranty, if ever, the new owner gets extremely frustrated and ends up paying for the repair/replacement themselves.

What say you @Brandon Abbott?

Shaun Palmer · Answer

@Ben Kirchner

I agree with just about everyone.  I have not found a good home warranty company either.  The only time that I feel they are worthwhile is when you buy, ask the seller to pay for one.  Then you are covered for "some" items.  When I say "some" every warranty company I have used always finds ways to not pay for things.  In example, I received 2 quotes from American Home Shield for a water heather that went out.  One plumber said there was "additional" work required that was not covered which was a joke.  The other plumber said no problem it is covered.  Long story short, there "emergency services" took 4 days to fix a leaking water heater.  My plumber would have fixed it that day.

Old Republic is another one.  I have not had any good experiences with them.

Recently, I had an HVAC go out in one of my rentals which I was supposed to be covered for....right!.  I even paid for the extra HVAC coverage.  Upon inspection, they determined that the work was not of quality workmanship and caused the system to fail.  This work was done before I purchased the unit and was working when I bought it.  Needless to say, they would not cover it.

In my opinion, I would never pay for a home warranty.  It is not worth it.  Hope this helps.

Ben Kirchner · Answer

Well, I have two properties with an HVAC that is over 16 years old.  My thoughts are to have a home warranty in place until these go out.  However, Total Protect Home Warranty just recently did anything and everything they could to not repair/replace my HVAC on another property, so I don't want to end up with another company that will leave me to replace it myself again.

@Jiri B. - Can you list the companies you would recommend against?

@Aaron Klatt - Is there a reason you list First American as a consideration?

Good home warranty company?

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