There might be a lot of things you can do yourself around the house, but repairing appliances isn’t always one of them. Home systems like electrical, HVAC, and plumbing can easily require a professional touch.
The problem with these kinds of repairs is that they can come up when you least expect them, and they can be expensive to fix. Major appliances and home systems these days have a lot of moving parts, and sometimes you can’t even diagnose the problem yourself.
A home warranty can solve these problems. When something big, like an appliance or a home system, breaks down or develops problems, you might not have time to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair the problem yourself; a home warranty makes it easy to get professional help when you need it. And it can defray many of the costs associated with repairing or even replacing a major home system or appliance. Here are five reasons why you should buy a home warranty.
1) Protect What Your Home Insurance Doesn’t
Your homeowners insurance protects your home’s structure and contents against catastrophic loss. Your mortgage lender probably requires you to have homeowners insurance, but even if your home is paid off, it’s still a good idea to keep homeowners insurance to protect your investment. If something happens to the house itself, or to its contents (like, for example, a burglary), your insurance carrier would pay to replace or repair what was damaged or stolen, up to plan limits.
And that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t help if your oven breaks down, your water heater starts leaking, or your HVAC fails. These kinds of failures, which are typically the result of normal wear and tear on the appliance or home system, aren’t covered under homeowners insurance. You need a home warranty, which is a service contract under which you can have covered appliances and home systems repaired and replaced. You pay monthly or yearly plan costs, and a trade service call fee at the time of service.
2) Save Money on Repairs and Replacements
The main reason most people buy home warranties is to help defray the cost of unexpected home breakdowns. You can easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars out of your own pocket to pay for repairing or replacing an appliance or home system. When you have a home warranty, the home warranty company covers most of the cost — after you pay your plan costs and trade service call fees, the rest of the cost is covered, up to your plan limits. You can even get a free replacement appliance, delivered and installed if the service professional who handles your service call determines that replacement is the better option.
3) Find Service Professionals Easily
Finding someone trustworthy to do work in your home is never a small feat. You have to find out who the best local people really are, either by word of mouth or reading online reviews, checking licensing, verify that they don’t have any complaints lodged against them with your state’s consumer protection agency, then you can finally get quotes.
Home warranty providers contract with local, independent businesses and they take care of all the vetting and background checking, so when you place a service request, they already have someone lined up to take your call. It’s the easiest way to find a service professional quickly when you need one.
4) Make Service Calls 24/7
Home breakdowns don’t always happen during business hours — if anything, they’re more common outside of business hours, when you’re actually home. You can place service requests and get fast service 24 hours a day. Most providers take service requests on the phone or online.
5) Get Membership Perks
The exact perk you’ll get as a home warranty member will vary depending on your provider, but common ones include access to discounts on new appliances or discounted preventive services. So you could score some free furnace filters or a cheap HVAC service. You might also have access to unique add-ons, like roof coverage, or electronics coverage, depending on what your provider offers.
Keeping your home just the way you like it is hard, but having a home warranty can help. You’ll save money — and time — that you can put toward your home improvement projects, spend on your family, or use on something that makes you happy.
