Can I insure my central AC unit, this may sound silly but my (NEW) wife runs it wide open and if it goes I may not have 6k for a new one, is there any way to insure it??

You can buy home warranties they cover many different things, American Home is one, we've got it on the daughters house, older appliances, etc.

So far they replaced the full stove unit when it couldn't be repaired and serviced and fixed the ac unit. $50 each time...

Yep. A home warranty is what you're looking for if you need to hedge against large, unexpected expenses.

Anywhere from $300-500/yr. depending on options, and you can get pretty much every major system in your home (including major appliances) covered.

You could just tuck away the premium for a rainy day instead, but if cash flow and immediate access to funds in case of emergency failure is a concern, then it may be a good way to go.

-Rob

Home warranties are an option, but there are a number of gotchas with those. Like with most warranties, there are various terms and conditions that apply. For example, many home warranties will only fully cover a HVAC system if it's under X years old, and only offer pro-rated coverage past that time frame. So in that case, even if you have third party warranty coverage on your AC, you may still have to fork over a large chunk of your own money when it comes time to replace it.

And home warranty companies are kinda notorious for doing whatever they can to try to weasel out of paying for a claim. They're in the business to make money, not pay out money.


Personally, I wouldn't bother. As BurtonRW suggested, a better option (provided you have self control and some slack in your budget) is to simply budget a certain amount from every pay period to go into a "shit happens" savings fund, and be disciplined enough to not touch that pot of money until something big happens, like your AC going out.

yea, I have been stashing away but , 6 to 10k is a large amount on what I make. Any suggestions as to which home warranty co to look/avoid??

I was hoping to just add a rider to my homeowners

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I was hoping to just add a rider to my homeowners

Homeowner's insurance isn't for normal wear and tear. It's for unforseen losses due to things like catastrophes and emergencies.

If lightning strikes your AC and fries it, your insurance may cover it. But if your AC gives up the ghost because it's been run hard for 15 years and has reached the end of its mechanical life, insurance won't cover it.

(Just like your car insurance doesn't cover the tires going bald, or the 300k mile engine blowing a head gasket.)


However, your insurance company might partner with a home warranty company to offer warranty coverage through a different policy, or partner together for a referral discount to an outside warranty company. That's worth checking into.

thank you sir !

My experience has been negative. My climate control died when it was 10 above zero. The company didn't send a tech for 2 days, then told us in 20 minutes my repair was not covered. I funded the replacement myself, and got the remainder of my premium refunded.

Im in the camp that purchasing a "home warranty" for $500 is a good way to piss away $500 and never see it again.

Self insure... they last 20 plus years. You need to plan for replacing them when 20 years is approaching.

$6000 replacement cost divided by 20 years is $300 per year.

You can set money aside in savings every year to plan for replacement. Or get a loan, or put it on the credit card and pay it off... or get a home equity loan worst case...

I'm in SW Florida and I replace mine every ten year or so, just because. We have the money, I like a new unit that breaks down less... and newer units use less electricity too, so there is some recouped cost based on energy cost.

If you decide to sign up, make sure you read the fine print... in my case, several of my big appliances (stove, dishwasher, fridge, boiler) are under a worry-free contract with the local utility.
All of my kitchen stuff is Frigidaire and installed new in 07. They've pretty much replaced everything in the dishwasher, replaced parts in the fridge, and did a control panel replacement on the stove when the LED display went dim.
But the second time the control panel went belly up and I couldn't operate the oven, they told me that the board was no longer available.
Unfortunately, they don't replace what they cannot fix. And their fine print stated that clear as day (wish I'd seen that earlier).
They ended up crediting me for 6 months worth of the premium for that appliance. Was not a lot of help on the cost of a new range...

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Self insure... they last 20 plus years. You need to plan for replacing them when 20 years is approaching.

$6000 replacement cost divided by 20 years is $300 per year.

Exactly.

There are other major systems in your home (water heater, roof, appliances, etc.) that also have a finite lifespan. Usually on a 10 or 20 year cycle. So like with the HVAC system, you're best served to plan ahead for their replacement, saving a bit at a time towards those known future expenses over their estimated lifespan, rather than trying to scramble for the money to absorb a massive sudden hit when they finally do go kaput.

It's one of the joys of home ownership... There's always something needing fixing or replacement, and there's no landlord to call when something breaks. Just you.

This is the company we've used on both our daughters homes, AHS or American Home Shield

We haven't had one negative experience and they have fixed problems in both situations without issue.

https://www.ahs.com/

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
And home warranty companies are kinda notorious for doing whatever they can to try to weasel out of paying for a claim. They're in the business to make money, not pay out money.

As an addendum, even if they don’t weasel out of paying there is a chance they send a lowlife, scum-sucking, incompetent contractor that will make you wish they had weaseled out.

My buddy is a full-time missionary and one of the kindest and easy going people I know. The plumbing contractor American Home sent out was so bad that even he threw them out if his home.

You are looking for a Home Warranty, not Homeowners Insurance.

As real estate professionals, we require a Home Warranty policy to be purchased on every transaction. That, along with a home inspection, cuts down significantly on litigation risk. We use First American, but American Home Shield is another big company.

Warranty policies will have payout limits on each system. The policy may not pay out $6-10k to replace your entire system--but typical issues with the AC don't usually require complete replacement. A couple thousand dollars in policy limit is usually enough to diagnose and repair most issues to keep your AC going.

It's true that the warranty company will try to weasel out of paying out of a claim by narrowly defining what the policy covers--that's their right, and that's all spelled out on paper. Conversely, understand your policy and frame your repair requests with your policy restrictions in mind, and you should be OK.

We bought a house last year for ourselves and negotiated a premium home warranty policy as part of the purchase. It's paid for itself many times over so far--they paid to replace a gas line, a water line pressure regulator, two toilet rings, two annual HVAC inspection and maintenance calls, and a service call on our built in fridge. We were diligent about making claims within the policy period, being friendly and supportive of the various techs (i.e., helping the techs "find" and document a covered repair), and being firm but not annoying with our adjuster.

That said, we didn't re-up when our policy expired, and felt that banking the premium was better now that we had a year to shake out all the problems in the house.

Yes, the contractors they send out are usually lowest bid. Generally pretty bad, as a rule. You have to be diligent with making sure the "record" reflects what is actually happening, communicating with your adjuster in writing to build a case that supports a payout on the claim.

quote:

As an addendum, even if they don’t weasel out of paying there is a chance they send a lowlife, scum-sucking, incompetent contractor that will make you wish they had weaseled out.

My buddy is a full-time missionary and one of the kindest and easy going people I know. The plumbing contractor American Home sent out was so bad that even he threw them out if his home.

As a retort to this, My wifes company provides insurance services for a local large AC company, she wanted to call them since they are a client over the AHS service.

The client told my daughter the system was shot, that she needed a new capacitor, and a few other parts, cost to repair would be half a new unit and the R-12 her system uses was no longer available and they didn't carry any R12 so she needed a new AC system. We told them we'd have to think about that..



Now as a contrast, the company AHS sent was a smaller mom and pop AC outfit, they came on time, fixed the issue, found the capacitor and the other defective items the "top tier" ac contractor said were working fine.

He fixed the leak, filled it with R-12, $50 out of pocket zero other repairs. That was a year ago and it's still running good.

wow!

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Im in the camp that purchasing a "home warranty" for $500 is a good way to piss away $500 and never see it again.

Self insure... they last 20 plus years. You need to plan for replacing them when 20 years is approaching.

$6000 replacement cost divided by 20 years is $300 per year.

You can set money aside in savings every year to plan for replacement. Or get a loan, or put it on the credit card and pay it off... or get a home equity loan worst case...

I'm in SW Florida and I replace mine every ten year or so, just because. We have the money, I like a new unit that breaks down less... and newer units use less electricity too, so there is some recouped cost based on energy cost.

I'm with you on this. Self insuring is the best option.

And yes, a new A/C can save electricity, sometimes a lot. I replaced my 18 year old A/C a year ago and my monthly electricity payment went down $30/mo

Sounds like you have the insurance question answered, so I chime in on this...

Your A/C running all the time isn't necessarily that bad for it. In fact, the compressor running continuously isn't as hard on the system as frequent cycling. If you are looking for ways to extend the life of your system, doing the maintenance is probably more useful than buying the insurance. Changing the filter in your air handler, cleaning your condenser coils, and maintaining coolant levels would probably be better than just buying insurance, wrt extending a system's life. You'd be better off putting the cost of the insurance premium into having an annual service by an HVAC professional, IMO. You might find that the fine print in the policy mandates this anyway.

I've done a lot of work for the home warranty companies. Your results will very with the contractors in your area. We were a very good contractor (electrical) and fixed 95% of the problems on the first visit in under an hour. For appliances I heard some horror stories about taking months and multiple trips to repair. I've also heard stories about weeks in the summertime to fix HVAC. Lastly I've heard people who've had half their house replaced from them and are $20k positive over premiums paid.

I personally don't have one simply because I can fix just about anything in my house that breaks and know people that own businesses for the stuff I can't fix. When I buy my next one, I plan on carrying a plan for the first year or two.

As a side note. Don't ever be an asshole to the techs they send. I had great latitude to determine what was covered or not and knew how to write the report. If I liked you and your were polite, I'd bend the rules for you. If you were a complete asshole, I'd find any way I could to deny you.