Any recommendations on a home warranty company? Seems like I never hear anything positive about them but remember a realtor recommending one years ago so thought I'd try here. Thanks!

I recommend Old Republic Home Protection. They are not perfect but are definitely better than most.

I have a brief relationship with my HW and it's pretty mediocre. Shower was dripping, so I submitted a ticket online. It was going to be $150 to get a horribly-reviewed plumbing company to drive from an hour away. No thanks.

We had fidelity - was always pleased with contractors that came out - things were fixed including a 20+ yr old built in microwave. The biggest hiccup was trying to get a new air conditioner. Overall - not worth it to extend past the warranty that comes with the house.

Not to mention it will not be fixed in a day. Prepare to have the tech come out in 2 days. Verify it's broke, order the part, wait a week for part to come in, wait a couple more days for tech to come back out. Now, imagine this is your AC or fridge

They all will patch your AC and hope you move before they have to replace big components.

And if your AC breaks be ready to wait a week for a contractor to come out.

To answer your question, you can get a multi year discount if you go with Choice Home Warranty. I had them for a few years and I did get my monies worth but had to get my own AC guy to come out because waiting was not an option. They fixed a lot of stuff.

I asked my trusted AC guy if I should get a home warranty. My Goodman system was 10 years old then now 12. He said no and listed some of the same issues presented. Lagging service, bandaid fixes, lack of control of contractors.

He said put the money aside and have that as a starter down payment and just finance balance. I asked for a quote a month ago and he said bare bones system he puts in rentals is 5500-6000 for my home. I can work with that. It goes to 12k pretty quickly but he said it's just for more bells and efficiencies.

We have started using Americas Preferred Home Warranty. They all have some negatives so if you are going to get one find the one with the most positives. The best thing about them is you pick your own contractor, he comes to the house, you call the 800 number with the diagnosis and they approve it over the phone. No waiting on their contractors. Now the bad. They have very very low coverage limits. I believe AC is either 1500 or 2000. So its fine for most repairs but if you have a major issue or need to replace the whole thing it is covering a fraction of the costs. I think the water heater cap is around 800 or so. To me though the positive outweighs the negative. Sure, some of the other ones "cover" higher costs but when my AC or a clients AC breaks in Aug I cant wait for 3-5 weeks to get it fixed.

I will also say some companies get a bad rap because people don't understand them or have unreasonable expectations. I see this the most on AC units. If someone's unit breaks multiple times they want them to just put a new one in. I tell people to think of it like a car warranty. If you are under warranty and your transmission goes out they fix the transmission. If next month your ac goes out they don't give you a new car, they fix the AC.

The biggest problem though is the way many of them pay their repair people. They pay them pennies on the dollar for most repairs so the only way they make money is to find extra "uncovered" expenses. Or they turn what should be 1 trip into 4 trips so they can charge 4 trip fees and keep their avg cost per trip down. Yes, the home warranty company rates them on how low their repair cost per trip is. I actually had one through American Home Shield on a house where the evaporator coil went bad on the ac. The cost their repair tech wanted to replace it with them covering the unit and labor but him charging for "uncovered items" was actually $500 more than what my normal AC guy charged to buy the new unit and replace it. When that happens you can always do the cash out option. It is allot less than it should be but better than messing with their guys usually.

if you aren't paying for this warranty, just pick the one that will let you cash out whatever they deem covers the cost of a repair. then use that money and get it fixed yourself.

Price out what they are selling plus add huge profit and commissions. It would be nowhere near the number that they are charging. Something has to give.

We were without our master bathroom toilet for over a month dealing with warranty company to finish their job.

A month.

Not worth it.

They're worthless. Save the money.

The company I use allows me to call the service provider I want in my area, the service provider provides a quote, they approve the work to be done. When the work is complete, the service provider calls from my house, I verify the work is done to my satisfaction, I write the provider a check for my deductible the warranty provider provides them the balance. I think they provided some before and after pictures also.

Very painless and efficient.