Showing posts with label money saving tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money saving tips. Show all posts

Monday, August 25, 2014

How paying $520 saved me thousands dollars...

I bought my house a year ago. When I bought my house, I had a Home Warranty insurance through the seller. The year passed by and it was time to renew or drop Home Warranty Insurance. My house was built in 2002, not very old. But we live in Texas and our ACs run like crazy during summer months. I decided to renew. Actually instead of renewing I found a new Home Warranty company.

If you are not familiar with Home Warranty insurance, it usually covers most main systems in your house: AC, Heater, Plumbing, Electrical, etc.

The yearly contract cost me $520.00. You can choose either pay in monthly payments or once a year payment. If something that is under the warranty breaks, you call your warranty company, pay a service fee, in my case it is $60, and technician will come and diagnose the problem and sometimes fix it right away.

The thing is you might use it through the year but you might not. Plus not everything is covered. Someone would think it is a waste of money. It turned out it was not in my case.

About two months after I bought a new Home Warranty Insurance my AC stopped working.
I called my Warranty company. Paid $60.00. AC technician came 3 days later. I was upset because I have to wait so long. Technician said I have a leak in the compressor and it needs to be replaced. Then it took another week for installers to come. But instead of compressor they brought entire new unit! I was very happy.

But my happiness didn't last long. They installed new unit, but AC still didn't work. After checking around, they found that previous technician did not notice the real cause of the problem! My motor was broke. It took several long phone calls with my warranty company and AC company, another $60 dollars and a new technician in order to replace the motor. Finally after another week of waiting my AC started working again.

We were lucky to stay with our family member these two weeks. It was a stressful two weeks, and it took me a while to straighten it all up. But I can't complain at the end.

If I would not have warranty company it would cost me at least 1,200 dollars just for a new unit and about $300-500 for the motor, plus freon - another $260 and work - not sure how much. By new regulations AC companies might want to replace my entire system, which would cost me even more. But all that I paid was a price of a contract $520.00 plus 2x$60.00 technician costs.

My warranty is still good for another 10 months, in case something else breaks down.
Will I keep renewing my Warranty? Oh yes!