For those who aren't familiar with them, home warranties are a great way to save on the cost of repairs around the house. As with automobile warranties, they will pay for themselves many times over. (For more info on auto warranties and service contracts, please visit my posts on Car and Truck Warranties and Warranties and Protection Plans for Electronics and Devices.)
What is a Home Warranty?
A man's home is his castle, they say. That being the case, he will want to take care of it, and a home warranty can help. A home warranty essentially operates on the same principle as insurance: you purchase it to cover the repair of certain items that may break or simply cease to work. This could include plumbing, garbage disposal, major appliances, etc.
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To see how a home warranty might work, assume that you have such a warranty and awake one day to discover that the icemaker on your refrigerator is no longer working. You'd simply have to make a service call to your home warranty company, and they would arrange for a qualified repairman to come fix the problem. You would be required to pay a minimal charge for the service call - usually about $50 - but that is your entire out-of-pocket expense, even if they have to replace the entire refrigerator!
Home Warranties Tend to be Inexpensive
Home repairs can be expensive. Anyone who has had an air conditioner go out in the middle of summer or a refrigerator suddenly go on the fritz can testify that they are expensive items to replace or have repaired. That being the case, it is a bit surprising to discover that home warranties are fairly inexpensive - typically only a few hundred dollars per year. This is pennies in comparison to what the full cost of certain repair jobs would be.
I personally learned my lesson about home warranties several years ago, when we returned home from a weekend, out-of-town trip to discover our kitchen floor covered in water (something went haywire with the refrigerator-freezer) and the air conditioning wasn't working. (Did I mention that this was during summer?) After getting gouged with respect to the repair work, I got a home warranty policy and have had one ever since. More to the point, I have always gotten more out of the warranty than I ever put in. By way of example, we recently had three guys here at the same time working on our refrigerator, microwave and washer and dryer - and our only out-of-pocket expense was a single charge for the service call.
You Can Cover Almost All Major Appliances
As further proof that home warranties are a good deal, for the cost of just a few hundred dollars a year you can usually cover all the major appliances in your home, as well as your plumbing, air conditioning and heating units, garage door and garbage disposal. Afterwards, as mentioned earlier, you simply pay a set amount (about $50) for each service call.
The Work is Guaranteed
My experience with home warranties is that they always send a skilled and certified repairman to address your issues. Moreover, the work is always under warranty as well, just as you might expect if you were paying full price.
Thus, the repair of your dishwasher might come with a 1-year warranty on the parts and 90-day warranty on labor. That being the case, you have very little to worry about, as the repairman will come back and fix the problem for free if he didn't do it right the first time. Not a bad deal in my opinion.
No Worries
Last but not least, there's a lot to be said for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that almost any issue in terms of your home can be addressed without a lot of fuss - and without a lot of paying a lot of cash. A home warranty is somethng everyone should have. If you don't think so, think about the last plumbing or repair bill you received for something in the home. Then think about how it would feel to have paid almost nothing for the same service.
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