Stay in Your Home Longer with a Home Warranty

Your home is the place where you can be your truest, it’s the place where you feel safe. You raised your family and you have all your stuff and where you’ve made a lot of your memories. And it’s understandable that you want to stay in your home as you grow older — 76 percent of Americans over age 50 want to age in place, according to the AARP, and a home warranty program can help you do that.

Keeping up with the maintenance of a home is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face as you grow older. It’s one of the reasons many seniors downsize into smaller condos or apartments or even into assisted living facilities. DIY jobs grow from more challenging to impossible as you grow older, sure, but that’s not the biggest issue — many people find that they struggle to afford maintenance and repairs on their home once they’re living on their retirement income.

A home warranty can be a big part of the solution. It’s a service contract that defrays some or all of the cost of covered home repairs and breakdowns. Home warranties pick up where homeowners’ insurance leaves off. They cover normal-wear-and-tear breakdowns of major home appliances and some home systems, like electrical. Here’s what a home warranty can do for you.

Protect Your Budget

Budget protection is one of the biggest benefits of purchasing a home warranty as a senior. Once you’re retired, you’ll be living on less money, and on a fixed income, but you’ll still have the same home maintenance costs. Trying to fit those expenses into a retirement income can be impossible — and a major home repair can take a massive bite out of your retirement savings. And you never know when repair expenses are going to crop up.

A home warranty gives you the benefit of being able to plan, to some extent, to fit home maintenance costs into your budget. You’ll be able to plan for monthly plan costs, trade service call fees, and coverage deductibles. When you buy a home warranty from a reputable provider like American Home Shield, most appliance repairs and many home systems repairs will be fully covered, but even those repairs that aren’t fully covered will be largely defrayed by your home warranty provider, saving you thousands. If your appliance can’t be repaired, many home warranty companies can help you get a discount on a new one. They could arrange to have a new one delivered and installed, and the old one is taken away. That’s a big perk when you’re living on a fixed income and need help with things around the house.

Schedule Work More Easily

It’s already hard enough to schedule contractors to come into your home. Finding someone, doing the background checks, getting them to actually show up — it’s all difficult. You might already have some favorite service providers, but will they still be working when you’re retired, or will they be retired, too? Lots of folks lose their home services connections as they grow older because their favorite providers pass the mantle on to the next generation.

With a home warranty, scheduling home repairs will be easy. All you have to do is make a service request, choose an appointment window, and pay the trade service call fee. The rest of the expenses to the service professional who comes to diagnose and repair your problem is covered.

Get Discounts on Home Maintenance

Preventative maintenance can keep stuff from breaking down in your home. It is usually cheaper, faster, and easier than having it fixed. Many home warranty companies offer discounts on regular home maintenance services, like HVAC service. Taking better care of your home, you have fewer breakdowns to worry about in general. You can also get discounts on essential home supplies, like furnace filters, to save even more of your limited retirement money.

Most older Americans want to stay in their homes as long as they can. The financial burden of continuing to take care of your home in retirement needs to be considered. A home warranty can help you manage those costs. It offers a more predictive and easy home maintenance budget. With less hassle and lower costs, your dreams of growing older in your own home come true.

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