Does anyone know how to get actual repairs done by a home warranty company?

Last thursday at 7:00am, I called because the heat pump that cools my upper 2 stories was no longer blowing cold air. The warranty company said they'd have a contractor out to look at it later that day. By 3:30 I had not heard from anyone so I called to get the number of the contractor. THey gave me a number that was a fax number. I called back & recieved the correct number and called the contractor to discover that they had never heard from the warranty company and therefore no appointment was scheduled. I called the warranty company again, moving up the line to a 'specialist'. The proper papers were faxed & emailed to the contracting company while I stayed on the phone.
Ten minutes later the contractor called to say they would be by on friday. It was 95 deg here on thursday & friday. So, friday the contractor comes, looks at the heat pump and tries to reach the warranty co. to get approval for the repair. After 30 minutes on hold, he says he needs to get to his next appointment but he'd have the warranty company call me to let me know everything has been approved and when he'd be back. He also charged my system to cool as he knew he could not get back to repair it until at least monday.
Fast forward to yesterday. During the intervening time I heard from nobody. I get a call from a different contractor saying he'd be out this morning. He arrives this morning and his opinion differs from the first contractor. So, I call the warranty company to find out when any actual repairs were going to be done. They say they can do nothing until they recieve the second opinion paperwork.
So, here I sit with no heat or air in my upper stories. Luckily the weather is absolutely perfect at the moment, but what if it weren't? This is heat and cooling for about half of my house.
Is there a trick to getting them to do their job or is this typical? In Oklahome I had to replace 2 air conditioning units, I called and they were replaced the same day. This seems outrageous to me.
Thanks for reading my venting!

I can only guess that service is slower because it is a different company and I was going to say it is their busy season but I guess summer is mostly over now.

Just for the benefit of anyone reading this - never buy a home warranty. If a seller offers to buy one, tell them you want the cash. They're far more trouble than they're worth.

I have never had any trouble with my home warranties. Hell on my last house they replaced the entire downstairs AC for the $250.00 repair fee!

I still have the home warranty from when I bought my home, and every year it's paid for itself. I have had to fight with them on more than one occasion but realistically over the course of the same amount of time I'm sure I'd have had the same or more problems with repair people on my own without dealing with what's essentially insurance.

Anyway your experience is not ANYTHING close to what I've had to deal with. I call them, tell them my woe. If it's covered (it always is, I read the policy) they tell me to expect a call that day or the next from their contractor. Often the contractor contacts me before Old Republic (the warranty people) calls to let me know who they are. They come out, sometimes they don't even bother to get authorization because they do so much work for them they know it will be covered but it's a quick call if they do have to call for authorization most of the time. The job is done, and I pay $50.

Did have a big problem last time, but only because the "contractor" they sent out was a big fucking scam artist who was trying to get me to pay out of pocket for an entirely new unit. I got them the hell out of my house, called the insurance and told 'em what happened. Then when the russians submitted their bullshit report, I had to fight it with one rude guy who was like 'gee how coincidental you didn't like them because they said it's your fault' and I was like look fucktard at the computer since I called you the SECOND I got them out of my home! I made them send out someone else, refused to pay a "service" fee again...and the replacement guy gave an honest report...and the repairs were done. And he knew about those russian guys...he had spent the previous summer repairing all their botched jobs.

But yeah, other than that and one other scam issue from another guy a few years before...no problem. And had I flipped through the yellow pages I could have found asshats like them on my own unfortunately, and maybe even been screwed for some service fees.

So I love mine...but your experience...very bad. There's no excuse and I'm sure your state has some insurance board you could report them to or something if it doesn't get quickly resolved.

_________________

This post made me chuckle IRL.

Like I wrote, Home Warranties = bad.

If anyone reading this learns anything, learn this:
95% of financial instruments you buy are rip-offs designed to dupe people too stupid to understand them. This is true for extended warranties on televisions, whole life insurance, time shares, and yes - home warranties.

Buy if you want, but for every story of someone saying "hey, this paid for itself", there are 50 people who either couldn't get service, over paid for service, or never used it.

I won't hammer on this, but just go read some consumer websites about these turds. I'll start you at ClarkHoward.com and some others. You can go from there:

http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2005/03/17/9066/
http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2007/08/22/12568/?_form=1
http://www.ablehomeinspection.com/warranties.html

In a nutshell, the home warranties typically only cover shitty repairs to shitty appliances. You're better off putting your money into savings and replacing bad equipment when it dies.

My home warranty with Old Republic covers everything from my roof, to my plumbing to my a/c and heating, as well as appliances. And at under $500 a year it's paid for itself every year we've had it. It's repaired: plumbing (multiple times, various leaks until we finally replumbed the house last yearish), the a/c and heater, the roof, our dishwasher a few times, and one electrical problem. It even replaced every ceiling fan in our house. (One died, the people who came out evaluated all the others and said they were ready to go too, our insurance gave us an option of having them replace them all (ppl who came out) or a flat amount for each fan. We took the money and put in much nicer ones with it ourselves ).

I would agree that someone buying a new home probably wouldn't need it. And one should exercise common sense. But I'm glad we got it when we bought the house.

And we can't "overpay" for service. It's either free for someone to come out, or our co-pay is $50. (Now its fifty bucks it was less 10 years ago, but fifty still isn't bad).

No offense Orme but it's like saying 'high priced vaccums are a rip off'...and you point to Oreck and Kirby. To which I'd say 'yes, no shit...but that doesn't mean all high priced vaccums are terrible'...my Dyson is the shit.

It's not that I got some magical lucky vaccum. Dyson is a good brand and a good company. But if you live in a small apartment, have no pets, and only a small amount of carpeting...then yes, paying $400 or whatever for my Dyson is retarded. If like me you have more pets than the local zoo...it's wonderful! Most people fall inbetween but generally speaking it's a good buy for most people who can afford it and it will save them money over time since they won't be buying the cheap shit they replace every 7 years or so that dings you for $150-200 a pop, plus bags.

YMMV. But it's saved us thousands of dollars and made repair hassles a lot easier overall. The few pain in the ass times WERE annoying...but it's probably a lesser ratio than we'd have had dealing with people we picked out of a phone book. (And we found good contractors that way too...unfortunately they keep retiring and shit).

_________________

I would argue you are the exception, not the rule. Maybe Old Republic is an exception carrier, I don't know.

[quote="Tarot"]No offense Orme but it's like saying 'high priced vaccums are a rip off'...and you point to Oreck and Kirby. To which I'd say 'yes, no shit...but that doesn't mean all high priced vaccums are terrible'...my Dyson is the shit. [quote]I wouldn't say all high priced vacuums are shit, just overpriced

In my experience home warranties are not worth purchasing, but are worth accepting. Too many times the warranty company gives a hard time about making repairs, or does it on a timeline that doesn’t work as well as having the freedom to call anyone out. If they fix your heat in 4 days, that falls within the guidelines they set forth, but that might not work so well for you in the middle of February. On the plus side, they give you some protection when you have just purchased a new home and are probably very low on funds for repairs.

I'm sure there are plenty of cases where renewing or buying your own warranties works out, such as in Tarot’s case, but it is not the norm. If it were, the warranty companies would not be in business. They make money by charging more for the warranties than they spend doing repairs. Since they have to pay all the overhead of a sales force, office staff, etc, you can figure the amount they actually spend on repairs is significantly less than what they collect in fees.

If you are offered a warranty when purchasing a house though, take it, as for some unknown reason, home sellers are often times OK with paying $500-$1,000 but not ok with giving the same amount as cash back(sellers assist). The $500 now is also better than them reducing the home cost by $500 because you get the full effect of the money now, not distributed over the next 30 years. That more than makes up for the premium paid for the insurance.

Quick recap…don’t buy your own home warranties or extend them, but accept them from home sellers or realtors when offered.

PS. If you are selling your home and the buyer insists on you providing a home warranty, this is an item that you can often times convince the realtor to provide out of their commission.

Excellent idea. Have you had success with this in the past? I've only sold 1 home and that never came up, but I can see where that might happen.

The original coverage on mine was provided by the seller (for the first year). I don't know if their realtor paid for it...I'd guess not but I don't remember. But they're not that expensive anyway, or wasn't when we bought the house. It does help with the sale though because it will cover any 'oh shits' that first year and makes people feel better about some potential problems. Or it did me.

Haven't sold my home, still in the first home I bought, so can't speak to that. But given the seller gets jacked with all the fees...it's not at all a bad idea to get the realtor to do it if you can.

_________________

There are two common types of sales when you’re using a realtor, regular and in house. A regular sale is when your listing agent sells the home to someone represented by an agent from a different agency. An in house sale is when both parties are represented by the same broker (not necessarily the same agent though). Most listing agreements call for equal sharing of the commission for the listing and buying agents, and typical rates are 5-6% of the total home price. Using 5%, since the market is more competitive right now, in a regular sale the agent would get 1.25%, and his broker would get the other 1.25%. The buying agent and their broker share the other 2.5%. For an in house deal, the broker usually only takes 2% total, and that leaves the other 3% for the actual agents to split (or keep if the same person listed and sold it).

That’s a quick summary of typical commissions for agents to help understand why they will do things like provide home warranties to make a sale happen. Depending on how hungry the agent is, you can sometimes get them to provide a warranty for a regular listing sale. For an in house sale, they will jump through hoops of fire with gasoline doused clothing on in order to make it happen. That extra percentage is huge, and they want to make sure that sale happens instead of an out of agency buyer. In that case, you can take some advantages for yourself and still leave the realtor making enough money that they are satisfied with the transaction.