If you are looking for a Home Warranty beware of false promises from at least one of them. National Home Protection out of New York promises you a $50.00 Cash card from Home Depot if you sign up with them. I am currently going through the Attorney General of New York AND the Better Business Bureau trying to get this company to just honor their commitment. This was after numerous attempts through emails and calls.
They may be a decent company in honoring their home warranties but they are not when it comes to honoring their incentives to sign up with them. I will let you know what happens through the better business bureau however I do not expect a favorable end given my past communications with the company direct.
I would not buy one. First it is not a warranty, it is an insurance policy. I live in a city with headquarters for several insurance companies. Have you seen those buildings? Guess who is paying for them and all the people who work there and off the profit them make. These guys have to charge more than they pay out. So almost everyone will pay more than they get back.
My suggestion is to get out of the contract as soon as possible and start putting the money you save into a savings account. Over time you should come out way ahead and at the same time you will not be stuck with their rules regulations and red tape every time you need something done. You can have it your way not theirs.
Do a search on this group on that topic. You'll read stories about the cheapest material used, the cheapest brands, and the lowest bidder, usually a hack, doing the work. Add up what you pay a year in insurance and see how long it will take to replace that water heater and get a top brand. Put that money into savings to be used for repairs and you will come out thousands of dollar ahead over time.
Think about this, are they in business to help you or to make a profit? Do the math.
This happened 15 years ago so the details are faded. Within a fews weeks of buying this house, the central A/C failed. I had a contractor look at it. He then explained the problem to the warranty company. They told me I had to use a different contractor. The guy who came out and fixed it called them before he started to make sure it as covered. When he was done, he called them back (you always talk to someone different) and the person with whom he spoke tried to deny the claim in spite of him having an approval number!
I would have treated it as an Extended Warranty on most things I buy, not worth it, however the reason I took it was because we were/are selling the house and for a prospective buyer it was just one additional thing to put down as a potential incentive to help sell the home. Otherwise if it was just for myself I would haven't.
We purchased this purely as a gimmick, as another item to help make the home appear possibly a better buy if all things are equal. We didn't purchase it due to worry something would happen as the home was only 5 years old. We did though have a Heating and Air problem. No Heat or worse intermittent so we were faced with having to divulge an unknown problem that caused the heating unit to not cut on. We did have a repair person out who was able to diagnose the problem and replaced it. It took four calls however to the Home Warranty Company as the first three recommendations were out of business. I told them they have a flawed database and should really make a call first, themselves, before they assign someone for it looks bad on them.
Anyway after the repairs, they billed the company and I haven't heard from them since. I ask the repairman though before he left what the cost would have been for the part and their labor had I paid the bill. $220 to $240 he told me and that was what he was billing them. Maybe he lied and he billed them less but at least the problem was fixed and it has at least offset some of the initial amount paid.
My beef with the company, that prompted this post, was simply that their advertisement that promised a Home Depot Cash card of $50.00 was never honored but was more a trick to entice people to choose their company over the many others. It worked, in my case, and I was wanting to warn others that a promise by them isn't always honored. I also notified the BBB and Attorney General for their State as well as posting this on the Newsgroups to warn others about that distinct possibility, of them not honoring their promises.
I might shy away from a house that has "Extended Warranty" insurance, or certainly it would raise a red flag. These insurance companies often use cheap/substandard replacements.
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