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Posted by Bob Pietrangelo on February 13, 2007, 10:40 pm
When I first started in this business, I got started doing work with a
couple of warranty companies. The first one was with the local utility
company. All they were worried about was getting the customer taken care of
no matter what. They then farmed out the warranty to a true insurance
company. Boy were things different. Thye wanted to decline as many repairs
as possible, all kinds of small print. Then I tried a real estate warrany
company. I did 2 jobs for them and then told them no more. They wanted
bandaids on everything we did. They paid paupers wages to the contractors,
they would make customers wait for hours or days for approvals, and billed
them like $50 to boot. Seing it from the contractors end of the equation,
they are snakes. It is a crap shoot, they want your money hoping nothing
will break and if it does they do everything they can to cut corners or
decline repairs, and you are hoping things will break under warranty hoping
they will get replaced or back to in condition of usefullness.
My $.02
--
Bob Pietrangelo
bobp3@comcast.net (home)
bob@comfort-solution.biz (work)
www.comfort-solution.biz
>
> I used to work for a home warranty company and it was amazing the
> amount of complaints that would come in, as if homeowners were
> expecting their $400 premium investment to turn into a pot of gold
> somehow.
>
> Never mind that a disturbing proportion of homeowners are too busy to
> read and understand the terms and conditions of the policy, or they
> get sucked into dealing with dishonest real estate agents who are too
> busy to explain that "Well, you have to pay additional amount for the
> well pump coverage".
>
> Of course, some of the contractors are bottom-feeders as well, but I
> don't think the sampling of contractors affiliated with any warranty
> company is significantly different from a typical sampling of
> contractors from the Yellow Pages.
>
> Now home warranty plans are greatly helped by the wave of McMansion
> Developments in which the HVAC goes out within 5-6 months of each
> other on the whole entire block (say, 10 years after building). Wow,
> what whopping good equipment that was installed in the first place,
> probably some crap like Janitrol or Carrier.
>
> And then even a few (thankfully not a majority) homeowners expect
> their bottom-of-the-barrel Caloric range to be replaced with Viking
> equipment! Or a Maytag refrigerator with a Subzero!
>
> And then I loved the H/O's who shell out $800,000 for some 2K square
> foot disaster-waiting-to-happen and then get all ancy because they
> can't afford a new furnace. WELL IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD A NEW FURNACE
> THEN YOU CAN'T AFFORD AN $800,000 McMoneypit to begin with.
>
> But then I also dug the occasional homeowner who had a Renewal policy
> (!) and then asks some really ignorant questions that he/she should
> have figured out 15 months ago when he/she first closed and got the
> warranty policy, and then mouths off, "Oh these home warranties are
> shit, I don't even know why I renewed." Well, DUH, why DID you renew?
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> The Warranty Stud
>
>
>
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