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Home Warranties?

Looking Glass

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I have a neighbor ask me if I had any experience, and since have no advice, anyone here have any Positive or Negative feedback.

Thanks
 

FishSniper

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I have a neighbor ask me if I had any experience, and since have no advice, anyone here have any Positive or Negative feedback.

Thanks
We had one when we bought in Havasu paid for by the seller. Water heater starting leaking they replaced it no questions asked along with the water pressure valve and they even waived the 75 service call fee. We renewed it figuring it’s good insurance.
 

Looking Glass

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We had one when we bought in Havasu paid for by the seller. Water heater starting leaking they replaced it no questions asked along with the water pressure valve and they even waived the 75 service call fee. We renewed it figuring it’s good insurance.


Which Company, Please.
 

PlanB

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We had one when we rented to snowbirds. Cancelled it since we no longer rent, but had both good and bad experiences. I would not do another one unless I was renting again.
 

WhatExit?

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I've got experience. My perspective is go with one for the first year of home ownership especially if an older home to cover anything unexpected. After year 1 when you know your house and what's in it, drop it.

Home warranties - even the "best" ones - suck. They don't replace with same items and typically push the contractor to repair instead of replacing anything as their whole goal is to reduce their expenditures and maximize their profits.
 

Ace in the Hole

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Before I sold out my business this year...I refused to accept them. Takes forever to get paid...and they fight you on correct repairs. I would never ever get involved in that scam..along with the "car warranty extension" crap....two sides of the same coin.
 

YeahYeah01

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My personal experience was pretty dumb. My first house was build 1960. Had a few plumbing issues called up American Home Shield. They send a pretty shitty (no pun intended) plumber. They took a look and said we can't touch it, it's not the original equipment.... No shit it's a 50 old year house lol.

But my Mom and Aunt used it all the time and have good luck also American home.

My pops as well with his spa.
 

Big B Hova

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@Big B Hova has had some great experience. He’ll chime in soon. 🤣🤣🤣
Ffffuuuuuccckkk home warranties.

Been with out a/c for 3.5 weeks now. 5 work orders. (4 a/c contractor visits, 1 electrican)

Unit is older than shit, but hey covered by warranty. Fidelity National Home Warranty takes 30 minutes to 3 hours to get someone on the phone, and they never have an answer. "A resolution specialist will call you back"

After I blasted the fuck out of them on Facebook now I have a higher ups attention and they are talking about offering me a cash payment lol.

I know we need a new ac unit. It's from 1978

Just say NO to home warranties.

My river house water heater took a shit. It was covered. Still cost me almost 9 hunnid out of pocket for "code upgrades" (An expansion tank, 3/4" T and a stainless 3/4" x 16" line)
 

lbhsbz

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I don’t like warranties in general. I’d rather save money on the initial purchase and fix things myself as the need arises.

The only reason these places survive is because the house always wins.
 

HNL2LHC

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We were given one by our Realtor with our closing. House was a rental the first year of ownership. Saved our butts the first summer. Had the A/C looked at 4 times. Brought in temp A/C units for the tenants. The A/C is the biggest reason that we went with it. Hoping that it breaks and will be replaced at minimal cost. LOL

Once we change out all major items in the house with our remodel I will most likely not extend it.

Old Replublic Home Protection.
 

Flying_Lavey

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When I did residential A/C we did work for a home warranty place. It was HORRIBLE!! We were almost never allowed to repair on the initial visit except a run capacitor. They almost NEVER approved the proper repair, just whatever bandaid would hopefully work.

They really are not worth the money. A reputable contractor would be better in every way for repairs.

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CarolynandBob

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Had one the first year on this house paid by the seller. After a year we didn't renew. Those mother fuckers have been calling us for a year at lease 5-7 times a week to renew. Choice home warranty hope they burn in hell.
 

Dalton

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I've heard its pretty horrible for HVAC stuff, they'll rarely if ever pay for a unit replacement. Home owners sometimes come on the HVAC forums because the home warranty people cant get the unit right.
 

pronstar

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I've heard its pretty horrible for HVAC stuff, they'll rarely if ever pay for a unit replacement. Home owners sometimes come on the HVAC forums because the home warranty people cant get the unit right.


They aren’t making any money replacing $10k AC units for the $750 annual warranty cost.


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Singleton

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Had 1, made seller pay for it at time for purchase for 1 year. Highest level you could get via American Home Warranty and no way to upgrade it to cover upgraded appliances etc. Only covered the basic level and since everything in our house was upgraded, we always ended up having to get the cash value then purchase what we needed.

example - stainless steal upgraded dishwasher broke. Warranty would only pay for basis dishwasher with white of black panel and had a set cost. we took the $$ so we could purchase a dishwasher that matched and when you took the cash, they had an out and did not pay labor. same issue with kitchen faucet that broke.

Did not renew after that first year.
 

Good Stuff

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I’m a bit biased but my wife sells them for a living. She works for Old Republic and we have it on all three of our houses. Because she’s an employee we get jack shit outside of the plan covered so don’t think we get preferential treatment. They let you upgrade the plans for expanded coverage and code upgrades as well as high end appliances with high limits.

Over the last 10 years: Have had two water heaters replaced in CA with no out of pocket. Have had some pool equipment replaced and repaired. (By far the worst contractors are the pool repair guys. Seems like they always try to upsell to non-covered items but I’ve got enough experience we call them on it and normally get it handled with a second opinion.) 2 separate slab leaks on our primary house. Washing machine repaired that’s still going strong at 10 years old. 2-3 dishwasher claims and we just decided on the last repair that we would take the $400 repair amount and just put it towards a new unit. A few AC capacitors and condensation drain line cleanings. We are probably at a break even point on everything so far maybe even ahead because of the slab leaks. Depending on location I would recommend Old Republic or Fidelity Home Warranty, First American is hit or miss and AHS is known as one of the worst in the industry. If they have TV commercials they suck. If they mail you advertisements they probably suck. If they call you to try and get you to renew rather than just sending you the standard 2-3 renewal notices they suck. Honestly ask a few local realtors who takes care of them and gives them the least amount of headaches. I also recommend asking the realtor to connect you with a rep to order because it’s typically a few bucks less to run it as a realtor referral rather than direct to consumer pricing.

More than welcome to reach out to her if they have any specific to Old Republic questions as well. She gets paid $25 flat fee so if she’s recommending an option it’s not to make more money. Just let me know.
 
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77charger

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Worthless IMO unless its a first year in home.We have one on home we bought last year we renewed it and a/c went out last thurs they finally came friday looked at it found out control board is out now they need to order a new one said maybe monday they will be back.Its warm in phx too!! i bought a portable a/c for master bedroom and running the toyhauler a/c as well for my son to use.Luckily we also have a swamp cooler its only thing saving us for now

Last year a blower motor went out too took about 2 weeks total to get fixed.Money spent on warranty i could have had a good tech over and be fixed.
 

PaPaG

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We had America Home Shield on 6 of our rentals ranging from 5 years up to almost 15 most of the we owned them. We tried others, Choice (which was absolutely the worst), Fidelity, Old Republic and always went back to AHS.
We got the broker package on all rentals in Vegas and they actually fixed or paid us to replace every thing we ever had broken. In the end our CPA says we saved roughly 10k within that 20 year period including all yearly fees, all service call fees which is not amazing amount but the headache of finding someone to fix something worth a crap in vegas was a issue for a while so using them saved me a ton of time. Luckily we had no air conditioning issues other than quick fixes, those would have driven me nuts due to the return to repair after diagnosis since they typically did not have a great parts stock.
 

HALLETT BOY

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If these extended warranties , home and auto ,were any good , these insurance companies wouldn’t have huge downtown buildings , thousands of well paid employees, not to mention the millions CEO’s are paid . You might get lucky once in a while , but have you added your losses from Vegas the last 10 years ?
 

jetboatperformance

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We have worked in the auto truck extended warranty business since 1986 , doing onsite mechanical inspections state wide , things have changed dramatically over the years , in the early days it was very different , now they seem to work very hard to take care of their customers . I Know nothing of the "home warranties" but they dont keep selling long if they are total scams . Today I'm reviewing a company called "Olive" as My two F150s are up around 80 miles , so far I see nothing but good reviews and I like that its month to month with no large down payment ...
 
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YeahYeah01

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Lol of course after commenting on this, I woke up to my GE 2ish year old dishwasher not working. No power at the panel. Ended up being a loose connection going to the control board.

Not to hard but a pain to pull it out so I had room to work.
 

shunter2005

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We use AHS on our home and rental condo. We have used it several times over the last few years on our home. Example: Our Kenmore dryer quit. Computer board bad. They had to order a new one. Replaced it and it runs fine now. Total down time was about a week. A little inconvenience but not outrageous down time either. Our Kenmore front load washer went nuts one day with the drum going crazy. They came out and found the parts to repair were no longer available. They gave us a cash payout (little over $600) and we bought what we wanted. All we had to do was send them a copy of the receipt for the new washer for verification. Generally, they will replace with a like unit as defined by generation or style. If no longer available, they up will upgrade to the next level for $0 dollars, other than you deductible.

Our condo a/c had a leaking evaporator coil (if that is the right term?). They sent a guy that was completely incompetent and was trying to milk them for extra $$$'s. Guy even wanted to charge $100 for duct tape. I called AHS and told them that I did not want that guy fixing or replacing anything and that he was trying to scam money from them. I asked for a cash out and they said yes. It was a pretty decent amount. I added some money and had my guy fix it right.

I try to negotiate a cash payout everytime if I can, so I can just add to it and get what I want and not what they would replace it with. Other than a little inconvenience for scheduling appts sometimes, I have no issues with them at all. I really just consider it as additional monies that I don't have to use to replace stuff that needs to be replaced. Most times, it pays for itself with the first use.
 

farmo83

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I hated mine. Seller gave me an allowance for one and as I hadn't owned a home before I went with one. I paid extra to have our pool added onto it as I didn't know anything about pools. A couple of months into the warranty I found out my pool had a leak in it due to it being old and worn out. I called to file a claim and they said that wasn't covered. I asked what was covered and they said if a the pool was damaged by another act(the example they use is if a tree fell on it) they would pay for that. I said that would be covered by insurance and what benefit would they add, and I never got an answer. I griped up the customer service chain a little bit and never got anywhere. After that I decided to just take whatever I would spend on one and put it in a savings account.
 

Jay Dub

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We had AHS as it was a "gift" from the agents when we bought about 10 years ago. A few things broke. Dishwasher, plumbing etc. The company could never fix anything on first service call. It took 2-3 service calls for each repair. Extending down-time. Many times the "techs" seemed incompetent and they were always rude. Especially to my wife. I cancelled after a few years.
 

Gonefishin5555

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Closed on my house 2 weeks ago. I had the seller pay to have the AC inspected and updated with some minor repairs prior to close It’s too much of a hassle to deal with this stuff in a vacation home. Come to think of it most of my appliances are pretty new. Odds of them breaking in a year are pretty minimal. You are literally gambling on how often stuff breaks and when you win you still lose because they drag their feet fixing it and its not done up to your standard? Thats how i see it. My disposal cuts out and my friend says he replaced his last month and the one he took out is still good so he gave it to me. I also fixed my garage door sensor and replaced the weather stripping myself it was $50 in parts
 

28Eliminator

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I've had AHS for 15 years.. Lol. Yeah, their a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes, but they've paid off good for us. It does require a bit of patience.

All replaced brand new;

2 pool pumps
Hayward pool heater
hayward filter housing
2 Jandy electric valves
Wall oven
FAU fan (Twice)
FAU control board and control valve
Built in microwave
5 ton AC condenser (last year)
Maytag front loader washing machine
Multiple trips to replace broken garage door springs

And every single fucking POS internal component of my POS GE refrigerator.

I'm looking forward to a new water heater in the near future :)
 

Big B Hova

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I've had AHS for 15 years.. Lol. Yeah, their a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes, but they've paid off good for us. It does require a bit of patience.

All replaced brand new;

2 pool pumps
Hayward pool heater
hayward filter housing
2 Jandy electric valves
Wall oven
FAU fan (Twice)
FAU control board and control valve
Built in microwave
5 ton AC condenser (last year)
Maytag front loader washing machine
Multiple trips to replace broken garage door springs

And every single fucking POS internal component of my POS GE refrigerator.

I'm looking forward to a new water heater in the near future :)

Sounds like AHS is a better company than fidelity.
 

77charger

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Still have ac out in my house.Warranty sends out ac guy friday after a week of wating guy looks at it changes transformer i already know the control board is probably the problem only power coming out of one of the 120 leads to the transformer from the control board and both legs at the conductor were hot.

He comes down says the board is out he will order one be back probably monday.Well yesterday comes no word wife calls the ac place says they didnt know anything about our house she tells them they were out friday.They get back say the repair guy didnt mention anything but they talked to him and now say that the manager will be coming out monday to look at the ac because the so called tech wasnt sure if it was the board or not and wanted to double check!! today no show but they call back say the tech now says the board is bad they will now order one comes thursday they will be here friday morning.We will see what happens gotta love the process will be 2 weeks without home ac in phx luckily the swamp cooler is doing fine when humidity drops,i got a portable ac which works great in master bedroom,and i cleared the toyhauler so my son took up residence in there for now.My daughter still chooses her room.

Im pretty sure the ac company screwed up forgot something or just suck after this runs out ill cancel and pay out of pocket for faster and better service.Planing on a new unit this winter anyways.
 

Big B Hova

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Fidelity finally followed through. To fix my old ass a/c unit was going to be $5k out of pocket. They would cover part of the a/c unit, but would require the FAU unit to be replaced so it matches the new unit. That $5k covered "permits and upgrades"

I chose their cash out option of $2500 so I can hire who I want and control the situation.
 
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