re: Home Warranties

Lot's of good information-thanks. Here's my take and your right on getting better infomation here on the Money Talk. It appears everyone has had good and bad experiences. Doing some additional research on the internet, it appears that if you have relatively simple amd multiple repairs and don't mind a little wait time-it may be a good deal. If you have major items, it's like pulling teeth to try to get them to make the repairs /replace the item. They will find excuses thru exclusions/fine-print/wait time etc. to not make the repair/replacement. Some are worse than others. If it makes you feel better about getting the warranty, the key is finding the best rated warranty company. This is a problem since it appears all of them have a mixed bag of positive and negative reports with these horror stories of
not makeing good on warranties when it is a major items. That is why to buy the insurance in the first place. Jury still out for me.

My dad had issues with a major ticket item this past year and practically cussed out the representative for AHS. As LSUDad has mentioned, it is all about the subcontractors that are sent.

In my dad's case, they were sending subs from like an hour away to come to Baton Rouge and then they wouldn't show up like they had scheduled. He was skipping work to be home for when they were supposed to come and wouldn't ever show up. To say the least, he wasn't happy.

I have actually had first-hand experience at the AHS call-center that its policy holders call when something goes wrong. To say the least, it is a grab-bag of good and bad people to deal with. I was able to give my dad some "behind the scenes" knowledge to his benefit.

In short, if you threaten to cancel the policy, then all hell breaks lose. That is the last thing they ever want--it is almost identical to cable companies and how you can threaten to leave and they will cut your bill tremendously. There is a unit solely focused on customer retention when people threaten to leave. They are the ones who can "right the ship" if you ***** enough.

It sucks when you have to go through that much trouble, but I would rather yell at someone for an hour and save my $1000.

I think the system of subcontracting is where these companies ruin themselves. They have a rating system and a preferred vender site, but I just don't think it is consistent enough in its performance.