I bought a new to me (but actually 40 year old) house last year. I got a home warranty with Old Republic. I paid big dividends as I probably got at least 4X in repairs than what the policy costed. However, I got this nice email today as I think they noticed their ROI.

quote:

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Dear Plan Holder,
On behalf of Old Republic Home Protection and its employees, please accept our sincere appreciation for being an Old Republic Plan Holder.
We are unable to renew your Home Warranty Plan at this time, and we wanted to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to protect your home for the last year. It has been our pleasure to serve you.

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Any advice on selecting a new company? I would like to carry it into year two. TIA.

My house was built in 2001 and i haven't had to replace my AC, yet. I'm thinking a $400 home warranty is light years cheaper than a new AC unit, even if it's 2-3 more years before I have to replace. Should I go this route? We are still kind of young and swinging 6k for a new unit would be pretty tough without some help from the bank.

I would spend the $400. It's insurance. It's for peace of mind even if you don't use it. If you do use it, that's just icing on top of the cake.

I can recommend American Home Shield (AHS). You have to manage it closely as to when to use it b/c service calls are $125. Works out pretty good on electrical and plumbing.

We've had service on: recirc pump, pool pump, A/C Coil, Ice Maker, outdoor faucets (3 on one call), indoor plumbing, electrical, dishwasher....

They can be a pain to deal with on the phone (long wait times) but it's paid off for us. They replaced a 14 year old ice maker with a $2000 Kitchen Aid and I was shocked.

The only things not fully covered we've encountered so far are pool controller and portions of major HVAC work (I assume most companies won't cover ancillaries and 100% of refrigerant with HVAC work)

Hats off to you if Old Republic covered more HVAC than what AHS covers, but, that's the only thing I've found irritating with AHS; they replace major components with Goodman, and won't give you an option to replace like for like, unless you take a cash payout. And then it's deeply discounted.

That said, the company they send for AC work is really good and minor component replacement is worth it (capacitors, etc).

quote:

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My house was built in 2001 and i haven't had to replace my AC, yet. I'm thinking a $400 home warranty is light years cheaper than a new AC unit, even if it's 2-3 more years before I have to replace. Should I go this route? We are still kind of young and swinging 6k for a new unit would be pretty tough without some help from the bank.

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There was a thread or two just within the last month about people getting screwed by a warranty company on HVAC work. From what I remember one of them had a patch repair covered, but the extra "upgrades" and permit fees the contractor tacked on that were not legitimate blew away any savings. It was either go along with it and get screwed, or take a much smaller payout for the part and find someone else to replace it. Not sure which they went for.

I think I kept the HW for 3 years. They finally pissed me off one too many times and that was that. It did pay off through a lot of pool service that was covered, but here's something to consider:
Home warranty repairs get carried out by "lowest bidder" type of arrangement. These are generally the slowest and laziest and most non-punctual service people you will ever encounter.

You're better off finding a few good tradesman in your area (plumbing, A/C, electrical, etc) and keep their phone numbers handy. These are the guys who will generally show up the same day if possible. Hey, this is TexAgs... it doesn't take much asking on this board to find some good repairman locally.

Ask yourself: if you're A/C goes out in the middle of summer, are you going to be OK with waiting around for the home warranty bozos to show up - taking several days to complete the repair?
Or, skip the HW and just call up a good local guy who will be there the same day?

I started a thread on the topic (might have been one or two others)

Basically, it came down to the town's "new" permit requirements where we live that forced us to do work AHS would not cover. AHS also uses Goodman for replacement parts, we have Carrier units, and they wouldn't do a "like to like" replacement, even if we paid additionally for it. And they wouldn't let us dispute the costs, even after the Building Inspector said for our case we didn't need a permit (but he recommended one; he said about half of the contractors do, and, most good HVAC contractors would pull one)

They would give us a check for the equivalent Goodman coil, but, their cost was about $300, and we'd already paid a $125 service fee.

In the end we paid the $125 call out, plus $1558 in non-covered charges. All other estimates we got for a Carrier coil were higher than that (significantly).

Some of the non covered charges went to exceeding their limit on refrigerant (about $250). Some went to "new code" requirements that made sense but seemed crazy expensive (float switch $178)

The rest of the charges went to a new drain pan ($235 - which we might have incurred with a Carrier coil/new dimensions), Locking caps ($75), Mastec ($264), drain line ($348) and the mother of all charges: a $30 permit cost us $178!

AHS policies weren't perfect, but, in the end, the HVAC contractor is the one that told AHS what we HAD to do per local permit requirements, and AHS doesn't have a process to challenge the cost; we were paying the bill and not them (LOL).


At the end of the day I'd compare the following for coverage:

1. Itemize everything they cover outside, including:

• well pump
• detached lighting (gas lamps fall into 'no man's land' with AHS)
• outdoor appliances

2. Full list of pool items (controller?)
3. Replacement policy for all indoor appliances

• like for like (brand, finish (stainless)
• when do they choose to replace vs repair

4. HVAC/Mechanical

• like for like replacement
• do they have a contract with only one or many HVAC manufacturers?

5. Do they give you a cash-out option
6. Do you pay a service fee if they don't remedy the problem
7. When can you request a second opinion for a repair

• In our case with the HVAC, they wouldn't allow us to request a new quote from a different vendor, since we weren't disputing the diagnosis, only the cost

We've done pretty well with AHS. Our plan was to keep them around until we needed to replace HVAC and then likely drop the policy.

Now we know to shop around for a new company that allows for better replacement on HVAC when our policy expires if we choose to keep coverage.

But I doubt the other insurance companies' policies differ much for HVAC repair.

In the end, we've done OK with AHS. If I had existing Goodman HVAC in place it would be a push.

Regarding the lowest bidder/etc. types doing the home warranty work...

Plumber quoted a neighbor $500-1,500 to repair a slab leak. Said the $1,500 would be if they had to break the slab to effect repair. Homeowner already found the leak, cut hole in sheetrock to manifold, and all the plumber did was run a pex line from there to the kitchen sink area and tie in. When presented with the bill og $1,500, HO reminded them that the quoted noted that would only be applicable if slab work was required. They told him it was more work than they thought and $1,500 was the owed amount. They wouldn't leave his property until he finally forked over the payment.

Same plumber quoted a friend $3,600 to fix a sewer line issue by replacing it from the house to the street. I told them to tell the plumber to hit the rode and call another trusted plumber. The trusted plumber ran a camera and found the issue at the street hookup. Dug it up and replaced a 1 ft section of black collapsed pipe with PVC pipe. Cost was less than $200.

Same plumber was called to my daughter's house to fix a leak under their house. She called me to let me know they had been working on the issue for about 3 hours but still couldn't tell if it was a water leak or a sewer leak. WHAT A FREAKING JOKE to not be able to immediately make that simple determiination...check the freaking water meter...GEEZ. I told her to tell them to leave and get my trusted plumber out there. BIL called be back to tell me the plumber was the home warranty plumber so they couldn't so I exp;ained how bad they are. The guys were there for almost a day before they got it resolved. BIL called the HW company and informed them that the guys only did about 1.5 hours of work to resolve the issue but were there for almost a whole day.

That's the kind of HW company provided types you can end up with!

Have 2-10 warranty and was able to use a plumber of my choice for faster service.

Assume I could do the same with other trades as well.