Don’t Waste Your Money: Home warranties
With the cost of home repairs so high these days and even dishwashers now costing $1,000. Many people are signing up for home warranties. The only trouble is that they tend to come with so many catches.
Yvonne McCloud has a broken dishwasher and a broken oven. For both McCloud said her home warranty offered her just a fraction of what a repair or replacement costs.
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“They offered me $246 for the dishwasher,” McCloud said. “That doesn’t even cover the cost of taking it out and delivering a new one.”
Worse, she said the contractor her warranty company sent over made two holes in the drywall and did not patch them!
So I’ve got a hole in my kitchen wall, two holes downstairs,” McCloud said.
And her dishwasher is still broken!
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Home warranties are supposed to protect you when an appliance fails. But they can come with so many exclusions in the fine print. Such as the age of the appliance, and whether it is near the end of its useful life.
Last summer, Rosalie Battle’s 16-year-old heat and air conditioning stopped working. So she called her home warranty company, after paying them $500 a year for protection.
“They are not going to fix it because it’s a manufacturer’s defect. I said what’s that got to do with me?” Battle said.
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He told her the $1,000 repair did not qualify for coverage,m as it was not a failure included in their plan. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) said warranties are great if they cover the costs.
“So consumers do need to take caution if they’re saying that everything is covered.”
Not only that, most companies require you to use their repairman, not a top-rated local heating company.
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To protect yourself, the BBB said
Read the small print
Read the terms, conditions, and the exclusions, such as what is not covered.
Make sure that you read the whole contract before signing anything.
After McCloud’s warranty company, agreed to bump their payout. But she is still worried about the next time she needs repair.
My advice? Before signing up for any home warranty, read reviews and check their BBB report, that way you don’t waste your money.
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