[Katrina]

I need help deciding if I should continue to pay for my home warranty or just set aside the money each month.

The service fee has gone from $60 to $125 and the payments from $80 to $125 over the last 10 years.

Context or important information: My house was built in 1995. It had a new roof in 2005 after a tornado came through.

All of my appliances are about 5 years old. We’re remodeling one bathroom completely including plumbing.

We live on a fixed income that just took a big decrease because we no longer have any children living at home.

We will have to replace the air conditioning system soon as it’s just not big enough for our house. Please advise.

Edited to add: My main concern is the roof.

We won’t qualify for a loan to replace it. However, I think the warranty company is going to patch it.

[Lyn]

Ours has paid for itself so far! Definitely depends on which company you choose. We definitely chose the right one!!!

[Janet]

Are you saying you pay 125/mo plus 125 every time you have to have something serviced. That is 1500/yr + service.

Sounds like you have most things covered especially if you are planning to replace the ac.

I think I would be opening a separate account and deposit that money and cancel the contract.

At some point you may be able to stop depositing into the account because you have enough saved and only add more if you have to repair something and use the money.

[Tracy]

When we had a home warranty I really figured it was a waste of money because of all of the service call payments that I had to do.

It never paid for you could be better off in the long run.

You just have to kind of make a determination of what you think could break soon and how much it would cost to replace it

[Sherri]

My warranty has paid for itself more than once. New Ac unit, new washer and a new front loader! I would not do without

[Heather]

I do heating and cooling. I can tell you they are terrible on this end. They over charge the customer first “modifications “ to the contractor ALL the time.

[Nan]

I have had home warranties for the past 3 homes I have owned. Being single it has been so worth it.

I have had an AC die, diswasher die, garbage disposal die and 3 seperate plumbing issues.

I pay $525 a year and $60 service fee…if I have need for water heater, fridge, w/d, furnace etc it’s so worth it, in my opinion.

Furnace’s nowadays are over $10k….so yeah…a little goes a long way, again, in my opinion

[Nancy]

We’ve always gone without the warranty. It’s great to hear stories of where the company really saved the day and saved you a lot of money.

The reality is that most of the companies are very difficult to deal with.

I have found great success, just monitoring my appliances, making sure they’re well maintained and supporting small businesses that are honest. Good luck.

[Sarah]

The home warranty house we dealt with when we bought our house was a complete joke.

I paid for a monthly appliance plan through DTE energy (or consumer’s?) and that helped with appliance repair because literally every single appliance it our house is at least from 2000 or before.

Our dryer is from 1987 and I refuse to let that thing die!

I would set aside money monthly specifically for house repairs/improvement costs

[Dolores]

I have one and we needed our plumbing fixed so the came and said it was a preexisting problem and they wouldn’t fix it unless I was to pay 18k.

I paid $125 service fee and $800 for the whole year.

I think its a waste but I did it bc my house was an As Is

[Vickey]

Cancel it. There is a copay if something goes wrong which basically covers a service call.

If it is anything major, they won’t pay. They send the contractor with the lowest price…..

I know this from personal experience. They sent someone to repair my heat pump who knew nothing and actually destroyed the unit.

I had to get the State Attorney General involved. They finally paid half to replace what they destroyed.

It is a nightmare dealing with them. Anyone who extols them probably works for them.

[Sandy]

Im about to start calling around to get estimates on replacing our ac. Home warranty had someone come out 3 years ago when we bought the house, the company was wonky at best and their quote was insane.

I’d suggest calling in your area to see what kind of cost your looking at for ac replacement so you can make a better informed choice.

[Robin]

We just had our dishwasher die. Called out for repair and parts are not available.

Warranty is to only pay $220 for a new one…after proof of new purchase.

$99 for repairman, purchase of new DW $840 = $939 – $220 leaves $719 out of pocket.

Still waiting for the $220. They keep saying they haven’t received our paperwork…we keep hitting ‘resend’.

[Audra]

I had one when I bought my house 3 years ago. It wasn’t worth it. The first year, I needed my garage door replaced so that paid off, as all I was on the hook for was the $100 fee.

This year I paid the $100 fee for AC issues. 1 month after the HVAC guy was out, my AC conked again.

This was in mid-July when the temps were in the upper 80s. Paid the $100 and another HVAC guy came out and said we needed coolant and “a part”.

After a week went by we started calling both HVAC and Home Warranty – this was July 29th.

HVAC never came back out and Home Warranty was useless – kept telling me they hadn’t heard from HVAC company.

I ended up paying another HVAC $590 to fix the problem in late August… Never again

[Author]

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