Here is a story that confirms my past experience with the 4 largest ones:
Florida Insurance Commissioner just issued an Order (http://www.floir.com/pdf/DOC101209.pdf) to National Home Protection Inc. (National Home) to cease and desist the unauthorized marketing and selling of home service warranty products.
Early this year, the Office of Insurance Regulation began investigating the company's marketing and claims handling practices, and determined that it has sold, and continues to sell, home service warranty products in Florida without a license. The investigation also revealed that many of the claims made for household repairs or service were denied.
Florida is reportedly not the only State having issues with National Home Protection Inc., and several other states have also investigated and taken action against the company.
My past experience has shown the following prevalent issues with all 4 major companies I dealt with:
- 4 hour windows to show up
- larger claims denied for silly or made-up reasons even though contract did not spell out these exclusions. A typical example would be Air Conditioning units. They say they will replace it if they cannot repair it. Yeah right. (I saw that denial twice with 2 different companies)
- even smaller claims are denied because of omissions or vagueness in contract. Examples I personally dealt with included: snaking drains to a max distance of for example 10-15', water heaters not covered when they burst and leak, tank less water heaters no covered, appliances not covered because it is not a basic brand but a luxury brand, ice maker not covered, appliance too old, and the best one: I had a repair man flat out say that he could not do the repair because he did not know how...
The bottom line is money. These companies cannot stay in business if they provide annual services totaling more than the annual fee they charge the customer. So they are OK for minor repairs, but when larger repairs are needed, prepare to fight what most likely is a losing battle...
In the end my clients realized they were not getting their money's worth and did not renew their service contracts.
Comments(1)