I'm going to be renting out my home and friends have recommended that I look into purchasing a home warranty. The price varies by about $100 between the low and the high for the following companies:
- Service One
- American Home Shield
- American Home Guardian
- Fidelity National Home Warranty
Has anyone had any experience, good or bad with the above companies or do you have a company you'd recommend? I'm in Phoenix, Arizona and I'm planning on having the warranty cover the pool as well.
This is a subject that comes up frequently here. Most are bordering on fraud and don't to much to help the homeowner. When you good AC unit dies, they will replace it with the cheapest one available.
Put the money into a savings or stock account and you'll come out way ahead. Warranty companies are in business to make a profit. A portion of every dollar goes into their pockets, not repairs.
If you still want to go ahead, be sure to read very carefully what is and is not covered.
Your best bet is doing a thorough investigation on your tenant. Raise the rent $50, then give a $50 discount for paying by the 1st of the month. Worked well for me.
I wouldn't go as far as fraud. Maybe poor investment. I like it when the seller uses a Homeowner's Warranty.
AHS actually has reasonable prices and they do pay on claims relatively quickly.
As far as replacement. AHS doesn't replace unless it has to. For example: They offered to fix my 20 y/o dishwasher or pay me the cost to fix it. The cost to fix was $275 and to replace was $350 so I made up the $75. AHS got the check to me right away. :-) Helps to have a fax machine to get the receipts to them right away. AHS has good customer service if you cooperate with them and you're not expecting miracles.
As-far-as pools: Most of the stuff that is covered is pretty easy to fix on your own. You might want to pass on the pool if you are handy with tools.
After careful consideration I passed on the AHS warranty for my house this year. But, it may be worth it for the peace-of-mind for some.
Home warranties don't pay out more than they charge. They are in business to make money and they are going to charge you more than they figure they are going to pay out. If you don't mind paying extra and adding in the hassle of working through an insurance company and if the warm fuzzy feeling of having insurance makes you feel good enough to pay the cost, go for it. Just don't expect it to save you any money.
WRONG!! I just got a $700 repair fee on a 1.5 yr old heat pump AHS had some hack install then got $1600 for a basic air handler replacement in the same home all within 3 months of each other. They pay and pay and pay to fix crap till it cant be fixed THEN they replace. Stupid money if you ask me. It takes them about 45 to 60 days to get paid. They all are a pain in the ass to deal with. They nit-pic the bill to death to get it as low as they can and wont pay for necessary items like: Federally Mandated Refrigerant Recovery, Sheetmetal modifications Old equipment disposal, etc, etc. It can work for the customer but you have to be very persistant and know what your contract says. Bubba
So did I, when I bought this house, but then when the time came for repairs that might have been covered under this warranty, I realized that with the $90 deductible and the fact that I had to use AHS's selected people, the chance that I'd be left with an unsatisfactory job at a price more than I wanted to pay was really high. So, now I'm quite disappointed that I let the seller pay $400 for a warranty that I never actually used. It was a ripoff, as I have mentioned many times here, and Mr. Pawlowski is right in his observations. Just do the fiscally smart thing and save your own money for possible repairs.
If I ever find another house that has one of these such warranties on it as a selling point, I'm going to tell the seller to credit me the purchase price for it so I can at least invest that money myself.
I think putting the money in the bank is a good investment.
But, you don't have to use the repair services they send. You can request other repair services. But they have to have a contract with AHS. BTW: they have a lot of companies under contract. I've talked to the service people and they say AHS is a good company to work with because they pay.
Look. It's like any insurance policy. They are trying to pay you as little as possible. Duh.
My father was an insurance adjuster for 30 years with State Farm. I'm used to dealing with insurance companies. They are going to screw you if you let them but that's what they are in business for. To keep money for their investors.
AHS has a $55 fee (used to be $50) that has to be paid to for each repair service call. This keeps the nuisance claims down. If, for example, you have
2 plumbing problems, have them fix both at the same time if possible. A good idea is to wait until the contract is almost up and do all your service calls at once so you can put as many calls as you can on one service call. I've had AHS for two of the homes I bought and I used them both times no problem. I didn't get rich using them but ah..sucks.
I had a homeowners ins. policy from a company called "Blue Review" in Albuquerque NM that fought with me tooth and nail because my roof leaked. A nasty letter threatening to sue and I got a new roof. Like I said. AHS is fine if you don't expect miracles. But if you think the repair service genie is going to come out of a bottle and fix all your problems you better put the money in the bank.
And none of the companies that were available to me at the time I was investigating this were acceptable because they had very mixed reviews. Of course they liked AHS because AHS paid, but did their customers feel the same way? I think not, and I say this from the position of having a "stable" of contractors for very specific fields who are so good at what they do that they don't need to contract out with companies like AHS. These are the contractors I want working on my house, not people who would take an AHS or a Home Depot or a Lowe's installation contract, no insult to them since they need work as well. I realize that some locales may be much more limited in the availability of the kind of contractors I value, but I'm all set where I live.
[cut about father being an insurance adjuster, etc.]
In my area, it was $90. I'm not kidding. And it wasn't worth it.
I'm all for insurance, especially home and automobile, but I'm *NOT* for home warranties or pet insurance. Both are ripoffs.
I don't really understand your point. You have contractors already lined up? I don't think many people do.
Maybe different in different states. I agree: $90 is too much.
I passed on renewing my AHS contract but under certain circumstances it could be an asset. It's a gamble. That $90 service fee would of made it a lot easier of a decision.
Yes, I had contractors lined up. I'm not alone in this where I live, either. My point is that I didn't want to be limited in my choice of contractors, especially when that choice included people who did sub-par work.
They still don't. While in a few cases it will be true that they will pay out more than a specific insured paid in, those are isolated cases. Overall they take in a lot more money than they pay out. They don't build all those nice offices and pay all their employees and make all that money by paying out more than they receive.
I might add that their use of the word warranty is at best misleading as they insurance sellers not warranty providers in the general understanding of those terms.
I'm new to the Central TX area. I kind of at the mercy of some of the contractors. I check them out the best I can. If they didn't fix something right I'd sure get them back out here until they did.
If I was in your position I wouldn't use AHS either.
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