Why Not To Use Home Warranty Insurance
This post was inspired by Cliff over at ChangingMyDirection.com who recently made a post about American Home Shield and why they don’t do their job and/or are lame in general.
My experience with companies like this is not far off the mark from Cliff’s experience. In this arena, my favorite company to hate is East Coast Mechanical or ECM as they like to call themselves. Their service area includes the lower half of Florida’s east coast and are based in Boynton Beach, FL.
I should mention that my experience was a while back when I owned some vacation rental property in Florida which sat empty most of there year due to the hot weather south Florida is known for.
At the time, I was living WAY out of town in Anchorage, Alaska (a whole other story) and was in need of a company to do repairs on the major appliances should something stop functioning while a tenant was in residence. Sure enough, the washing machine failed mostly because it was about 20-years old, but then that’s what mechanical insurance is for, right? Wrong! Not when you buy it from East Coast Mechanical.
First off, these jokers would come out and ring the doorbell, decide that no one was home and not bother to call anyone to let them know. This is after I had informed their customer service people that the property was vacant and the technician would have to drive a big THREE BLOCKS to get the key in order to gain access. But no, they couldn’t wrap their heads around that one.
Then, when they finally get access to the property, they said that they would have to order a part and the whole show-up-and-find-the-unit-unoccupied-then-leave game began again.
Finally, I figured that these idiots clearly did not intend to uphold their end of the contract and decided to cancel whereupon I was informed that even though ECM did not perform as advertised, I was not entitled to a refund of the remaining insurance premium. WTF?!
I mean, COME ON. I’m sure that not all companies in this industry behave like this but the more I hear these stories, the more I am convinced that this is the norm.
Also, I asked a Realtor I know about American Home Shield and she mentioned that she uses AHS because they have a partnership agreement with Re/Max. I guess at times, a warranty like this just helps the deal to go through….as long as you never have to use it.
