Is a home warranty worth it?
 

Coming up on 1 year of home ownership! The seller paid for 1 year of a home warranty. So far it's been a bust...
1st use: our HVAC is terrible and wasn't warming the house. Paid $75 for a visit. Guy said our unit is dirty and won't investigate it until its clean. Wants to charge a lot of $$ to clean it. We kicked him out.

2nd use: an outlet stopped working. We replaced it and it didn't work. Had a guy come out ($75 for the visit) and in 10 minutes he says the switch needs to be replaced. We have 2 rocker switches in the panel, he wanted to replace it with an older toggle switch. Wouldn't replace like for like. We went out to Home Depot and bought a rocker switch for $5 to replace it instead.

We are worried that if something big breaks, they'll just replace it with the minimum product, and it has to really DIE before they'll do anything. Is it worth it? Is there a really good company that we should switch to instead? They want to charge us over $600 for the year. The major appliances are getting old.. (HVAC is from 1985 and will need to be replaced soon).

My experience is no, not worth it. The only major expense is the HVAC. But dont think for a second they'll replace an old system with a new one. They will bandaid it until your contract expires. All the while that $75 fee for a visit is just about what anyone would charge to come diagnose a problem. Far better off learning to repair the small stuff yourself. You would be surprised how simple most appliances actually are. One or 2 years of premium buys you a new fridge, washer, or whatever.

The general rule is don't insure for losses you can afford. Home warranties generally fit in this category. Also, as mentioned, the ability of anyone to come through on a home warranty is questionable. These usually function as lead generators for contractors. That's why they claim to accept them.

A big No.

Another resounding no. You already know why, as you listed a couple perfect examples above.

Have worked for many of these ins co's,including the utility co's. They get the cheapest shadiest co's to do the work. Most do not cover what should be covered. Take whatever you would spend and put it in the bank. Huge No in my opinion.

No way José. We had it on the house when we bought it. They make you use their contractors which usually aren't that great and not very available.

No, for reasons mentioned above, I don't buy additional warranty on anything. I set money to the side and use that if something breaks, usually end up with cash left over.

I am both a licensed contractor as well as a licensed realtor (although I havent done anything with realty for a couple of years now). IMO, home warranty's are a sales tool. They are meant to give buyers a warm fuzzy feeling. I would agree with all of the answers thus far.

Some of our switches and outlets are 45 yrs old. We always bought quality electrical components,$$$$.We ve had our HVAC installed 16 yrs ago. We have it serviced before summer,before winter. Usually about 79.00 plus parts,rare. We have Carrier. I was a contractor with my father for yrs. So I'm experienced. However find a local electrical,plumber,HVAC contractors for small jobs. Switches and outlets not difficult to change.You want someone responsible!

We have one and we use it. Our house was built in 83 and it has come in handy a few times.

Furnaces went out and it was 2k out of pocket vs 10k from the outside quote I got.


Ac went out and like others said they would get it working but it wasn’t working correctly- we had 800 monthly electric bills. We ended up just having that replaced.

Where it really comes in handy is when I am traveling for work and we have a water leak. Our house has galvanized pipe for water and leaks are just part of life until I re-pipe it. For $75 they will have someone there that day to stop the leak and replace the pipe. A few guys have used a repair clamp but we usually argue to get them to replace the pipe.

In my opinion it depends on your situation. I have an old house with noted issues and travel a lot. This gets my wife yelling at them vs. me....

I've worked with plenty of these companies and could write a book about the negative experiences with home warranties! Substandard contractors, excuses on why something is not covered (but they can take care of it for $$$$), out and out dishonesty, etc. While some people have had positive experiences in general they give one a false sense of security. Now if the house was 15-20 years old and still had all the original equipment (water heater, HVAC units, etc) it "may" pay to have the warranty......especially if somebody else had purchased it for you.

Its a tough choice. Did you have a home inspection done before you bought the house. If that revealed any problems you may have a tough time covering those under the home warranty. Also, they may want a home inspection done before they sell you a home warranty.. I agree with previous post, selling point, sounds good when a seller throws in a 1 year warranty at only around $450 or so.

I am all in favor of 1 year warranties when purchasing a home and the seller agrees to pay for it and not tacking it onto the closing costs.

I've had discussions with son-in-law and others who have purchased warranties on their HVAC and appliances claiming "They will come right out and replace it if it can't be repaired." A buddy of mine went without A/C for 3 weeks in the Georgia heat as the insurance company shopped for the best deal on a $180.00 replacement fan motor.

My spidey senses say no insurance company can sell a protection policy guaranteeing repair or replacement of appliances, furnaces and A/C that are at the end of, or beyond their useful life for such a low premium. That would not be a legitimate and sustainable business model. It's not like car or life insurance where odds are in the house's favor (insurance co.) that claims paid will never exceed the EBITDA (premiums collected) and when they do. premiums rise or you are dropped.

In my mind I would ask your situation- I mean things are going to break. Are you available to fix it? Do you have the knowledge to fix it? Do you want to fix it.

Most don’t ask for a home inspection- they aren’t that detailed. I think it’s more personal preference than anything. Don’t expect excellent service (it won’t happen) and don’t expect the highest quality contractor.

If your ac or heat is 20 years old or more you might want it just because things can go wrong and you might not want to drop 20k on a repair at that particular time and getting it ‘working ‘ is good enough.
In most cases the contractor isn’t installing a med gas system- they are unclogging an ac drain pipe, fixing a garbage disposal and replacing a light switch. None of which require a top tier contractor (again why people that have the time choose to do it themselves)

We bought a house that was built in 1994. we bought in 2006. It came with the one year home warranty. Fist I got a new 80 hot water heater in the first year just paying the 60.00 deductable. Then got the upstares heat pump replaced. all in first year. Then I bought the one year warranty for the second year. During the second year I got the downstares heat pump replaced withe the 60.00 dollar deductable. Since I got all these new items I did not buy the home warranty again.

Home warranties can be pretty frustrating.

I had one on a house and each trip was $75, a million reasons why the range top couldn't be repaired(burner circuit went bad- but hey, you still have 3 burners that do work. Sorry. Here's your $75 bill due immediately:mad:) ,

why the furnace couldn't be serviced( yes, I can hear the blower motor sounding like its spinning a log chain. Call us when it stops turning completely. $75 please)


.. I wanted to effing strangle the customer support person every time I called them. American Home Shield I am sure was the racket. The seller bought the warranty and it paid NOTHING but grief and cost 3 $75 service calls.

You'll get so po'd you'll just quit calling them and fix everything yourself.

Awesome, thanks for all the replies. It makes sense to me to not buy it ourselves. We are willing to learning things, we have been fixing and replacing the old irrigation system, replaced a few light fixtures, etc.

YouTube can really be your friend if you have some basic mechanical and electrical skills. I have repaired my electric dryer, washer, tankless water heater, 55" Flat screen TV, rug scrubber, and other stuff I can't remember by watching Youtube. Of course you have to pick video's not produced by complete idiots. Many professionals, though seem to have no problem showing us all how to make many repairs correctly. I have saved a bundle doing this. And if you try and fail, you needed a new whatever it was anyway!.

No, and never again for me. Had American Home Shield for 11 years. They were okay for the small stuff, but when my AC went out, they offered to put in a cheap, low-quality $1800 system while I had 3 estimates averaging $6600 which were same-quality comparables to my failed system.

They won't cover you at all when the expenses are large.