> Lastly, let’s just say I’ve done an arbitration or two with a home warranty company. They don’t make money by paying out claims! Thankfully we didn't (direct

> Lastly, let’s just say I’ve done an arbitration or two with a home warranty company. They don’t make money by paying out claims! Thankfully we didn't (directly, I know it's our money in there somewhere) buy a warranty when we got our house last year. I knew the AC was on its last legs from inspection, and no problem, since it was an older 80% old refrigerant system, probably closing on 30 years old. Figured it could wait one summer, in between all the other purchases with a new home. Then last year Seattle decided to have a heat wave. Maybe not much for those in Phoenix, but four days in a row of 105F+. That's still hot. And it's even hotter when you have no AC, as ours died a couple of hours into day 1. So I call the HWC. They "are having trouble" finding someone for "emergency service". Their idea of "emergency service" is "we have a company that will be out there in four WEEKS". So I found someone who could come out that day, for a surcharge. Reasonable. And the AC was dead. But this company were nice - the tech said "no promises, no commitments" and he did some shifty magic and got it running for about six more hours before it was permanently to the graveyard. So we started getting quotes for a new HVAC system. Responses from the HWC company: - we won't pay if you don't use our suppliers - we won't pay if you don't choose from our list of models (which were all low end, 80%, 1 stage systems) - even if you use our supplier, we won't pay above an agreed amount - if you used another contractor for ANY maintenance work on the existing system, we won't pay - if the maintenance schedule wasn't followed (whether you owned the system/property at the time), we won't pay Three (and a half) words are common across each of those bullet points, as you can probably surmise.