Extended Warranties. Worth the price?

Often, we get asked extended warranty worth the cost? The fact is if you like insurance, if you feel more insurance is better then you will like an extended warranty.

My personal opinion is that extended warranties should be called insurance plans. Why?

1. Almost all extended warranties are provided by third party insurance companies not the manufactures who made the product.

2. Extended warranty companies do not have to use the manufactures authorized service providers. The customer may not get the same level of service their appliance deserves.

3. All extended warranty providers require customers to call them prior to booking service. The customer will talk to an ‘adjuster’ who evaluate their ‘claim’ and dispatch a service provider if they feel the complaint warrants service.

4. All extended warranty providers require estimates over a certain dollar figure. Makes sense of course, the problem is that this almost certainly requires two trips to repair your appliance. That ups the inconvenience for the customer and requires the service company to diagnose and estimate for free, because they will only pay for one trip.

If you do choose an extended warranty make sure you find out who the provider is and get all the contact information at the time of purchase. Too often the fact that the extended warranty is provided by someone other than manufacture is hidden like a dirty secret.

Extended warranties should be called. Insurance
Unless provided by the Manufacture.

Ask;

Do they use the manufacture’s authorized service company in your area?

What is the insurance companies pre-authorized repair limit?

How quickly do they pay service companies after the completion of a service call? You may not get an honest answer but being reimbursed quickly and fairly is going to impact the level of service you will receive. Imagine you are service company and you have to invest in part to complete the repair that far exceeds your service call and labour fees, if you they carry that burden for sixty-ninety days or longer, you can imagine why the service company might be less than enthusiastic.

Read The Fine Print

In the spirit of full disclosure we at Vantage Appliances Inc. Would like you to know that we rarely accept service requests from extended warranty companies. When we do, we tell them that will not tolerate tardy payments and we strive to complete the service first trip, so we expect them to give us latitude by way of an amount, not requiring an estimate, that will aid us to do just that.