Home Warranty – A Niche Product Gaining Steam Across the Nation

Home Warranty

If you want to keep the best care of your home, a home warranty might be one of the tools you need. It offers protection for your home systems and appliances, as well as simplifies their repair and maintenance. However, this kind of service has some issues that you need to understand in order to choose a warranty that will be a real help instead of a waste of your money.

Home Warranties Basics: What They Are and How They Help You

In essence, a home warranty is very similar to a manufacturer’s warranty you get when buying a new electrical device. It offers the same kind of protection, meaning repair and replacement in case the item breaks down.

Note that a home warranty provides coverage to the devices themselves. This makes it different to home insurance, which covers damage incurred by perils. Therefore, you cannot use these types of protections to substitute one another.

fall scents for your home

Home warranties are growing more popular today as the number of appliances and the sophistication of home systems increase. The current industry value is $2.3 billion and it will definitely grow by next year.

Home warranty plans are extremely versatile in their coverage. The majority of providers cover any type of home appliance, from an AC unit to fridge to oven. They also offer coverage for home systems, like plumbing and electrical system.

With this kind of protection, you are able to avoid paying huge repair costs if one of the covered items breaks down. Not only do you save money on repairs in this situation. You also get to avoid the annoying process of searching for a contractor or service shop and dealing with them directly.

A home warranty provider serves as a single point of contact for you. This means it’s up to them to deal with all the necessary contractors and make arrangements. The time savings that come from this alone might be worth the premiums you pay on your home warranty plan.

It’s Not All Good: Home Warranty Issues

Despite all of the benefits that home warranty plans offer, they are far from perfect. In fact, due to poor industry regulation, many providers are unreliable and can get away with atrocious treatment of customers.

The most common problems with home warranties are:

  • Claim denials
  • Communication problems
  • Payment delays
  • Repair delays
  • Tricky Terms and Conditions
  • Unexpected costs
  • Unprofessional contractors

Home Warranty

Unfortunately, in many cases, you might be facing several of these issues at the same time. Therefore, you should do your best to prevent them, which means choosing the best company from the get-go.

How to Choose a Trustworthy Home Warranty Company

According to IBISWorld, there are 188 home warranty businesses today, and this number is climbing. However, you need to understand that not all of them are legitimate. To find out which of these businesses you can trust, you should get your information from reliable objective reviews. ReviewHomeWarranties reviewed 29 providers to date providing detailed information on each. These reviews contain an overlook of the company’s Terms and Conditions, customer reviews and ratings from popular consumer forums, and a description of the company’s history, which also contributes to asserting its credibility.

Another step to take when you are looking for the best home warranty provider is visiting the Better Business Bureau website. There you will be able to find profiles for all reliable home warranty businesses. Study that profile in detail to make sure that the company can be trusted. Go to another option straight away if the provider isn’t BBB accredited.

Another source of information to check out are various consumer review platforms. Start with Yelp but check several platforms. However, bear in mind that you should take those user reviews with a grain of salt. Even if they are truthful, they are most likely created by stressed and emotional people who want to pour their (usually negative) feelings out into the world. Take their opinions into account, but remember that they aren’t objective.

You also need to study the home warranty plan itself when looking for the best option. Scams, which are hiding under the guise of home warranties, are easy to spot through the contract’s fine print. Study it for any loopholes or hidden fees.

It’s no less important to study what exactly the plan covers. If necessary, you can also research common appliance breakdowns causes to understand whether the warranty plan will cover these specific issues.

Don’t forget that a home warranty coverage has a limit. This means you might get only a small fraction of the actual repair cost. You’ll need to consider this limit very carefully and so some calculations to determine if a home warranty plan will truly help you save money in the long run.

Overall, considering the propensity of home warranty providers to create Terms and Conditions full of tricky places and loopholes, you need to study the paperwork with extreme care. If you rush, you will only waste your money.

 

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Home Warranty – A Niche Product Gaining Steam Across the Nation
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