A Quick And Easy Guideline To The Best Home Appliance Insurance
Without home appliances, there is absolutely no way that we can imagine our lives today. Right from a dishwasher, microwave, refrigerator, oven, air conditioner or any other home appliance, we need them all to live a relaxing and peaceful life. Over the years, each of these appliances require repairing or in the most extreme conditions, a replacement which can be a very expensive matter. This is where home appliance insurance companies come to your rescue, helping you with the sudden expenses. There are mainly two types of home appliance insurance companies namely, a home appliance warranty and the extended manufacturer’s warranty. But which of these two options is best for you? And which is the best home appliance company to choose?
Confusing right? Well, in order to help you, we did a little research by comparing both, the home appliance warranty and extended home appliance warranty. The findings of the research will surely help you make the best choice for you.
Comparison: Home Appliance Warranty Vs Extended Home Appliance Warranty Insurance
Understanding Home Appliance Warranty Insurance
Home appliance warranty insurance covers both, repair and replacement of all included home appliance systems. This includes, electric, heating, plumbing, air conditioning, and also every other type of home appliances that are used in our day-to-day life. Overall, there are 50 or more home appliance warranty insurance providing companies that protect us specifically against such home appliance warranties with their different insurance plans.
Most of these companies that offer homeowners appliance insurance include coverage for appliances such as built-in microwave, refrigerator, washing machine and dryer, dish washer, all varieties of ovens and lastly, garbage disposal. A good and top quality home appliance warranty will also cover you for garage door opener, ceiling fans and your kitchen exhaust.
Understanding Extended Home Appliance Warranty Insurance
The extended home appliance warranty insurance is also called as a maintenance agreement in simple words. It is an easier option for prolonging the warranty provided by the manufacturer that usually comes along with almost every new item, when purchased. An extended warranty like all other items can also be used by simple household appliances.
Both, home appliance warranty and extended home appliance warranty, however have the same payment method. They both require you to pay a small amount of money for a given period of time in exchange of a promise by the manufacturer to repair or if needed, replace the item that is mentioned in the coverage period.
Now that the definition is clear, which one of these is the best home appliance insurance to choose? And what are the difference and similarities between these two warranty plans that make them better than the other? Read below to find your answer.
Checking Availability of Home appliance Warranty Vs Extended Warranty
Before we compare the other features of both these warranty insurance plans, let’s first check the obtainability of the extended warranty insurance (EW) and home appliance warranty (HAW) in the market for its customers. In order to come to a fair review, we collected data from a varied number of home appliance warranty providing companies that offer both or either of these two warranty insurance services.
Findings
– For a HAW, we discovered a huge selection of insurance companies that offer you insurance plans for your home appliances. Based on the state of your house, you can easily find anything from 20 to 50 home appliance companies that give you HAW.
– On the contrary, the numbers of companies that offer extended warranty on home appliances are very few. You can find an extended warranty only via the manufacturer of the particular home appliance or from the seller, who sold you that given appliance.
– In order to check the report findings, we chose 16 home appliance warranty businesses and 3 extended home appliance warranty companies namely, AIG WarrantyGuard, Assurant Solutions and SquareTrade. These companies are considered as the best appliance insurance companies currently ruling the market.
AIG WarrantyGuard: A company that closely deals with the world famous brand, Whirlpool, AIG WarrantyGuard is a first-hand appliance warranty company. The warranty is offered for appliances such as refrigerators, microwaves, dishwashers, ice makers, trash compactors, washing machine and dryers, different range of ovens and more. You can simply buy household appliance insurance for most of these items, especially when your original manufacturer’s appliance warranty for the appliance expires.
Assurant Solutions: An extended home appliance warranty like the others, the Assurant Solutions Company offers warranty plans for all your major kitchen appliances and the laundry appliances, and also including your television in it.
SquareTrade: SquareTrade is a renowned HAW insurance company that is exclusively available in Amazon.com. The company offers you a basic 3 or 5 year insurance plan for complete appliance protection, including both, electrical and technical failure conditions, as well as the unexpected leaks from the appliances.
However, all the 16 HAW companies that were selected by us provided us coverage for our home appliances in comparison to the extended home appliance warranty insurance plans.
When Both Types Of Insurance Companies Cover Similar Appliances
For the better understanding of obtainability and coverage of an extended appliance warranty against home appliance warranty, we researched 8 regularly used household appliances. We also made sure that these appliances were protected by both, HAW and EW. The home appliances we chose included a washer and dryer, window air conditioner, dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, water heater and a built-in-microwave.
During our research, we noticed that the refrigerator, stove and washer were covered by both, HAW and EW companies. The dryer and dishwasher were two items that were covered by almost all extended warranty insurance companies and by 94% of the home appliance insurance companies. In comparison, a window A/C unit and the regular water heating unit that is present in our homes were covered by just 75% of all the home appliance warranties against a mere 33% of the extended appliance warranties.
In most of the cases, all the home appliance warranty companies that we chose offered coverage on the above mentioned appliances. However, the extended appliance warranty companies offered insurance only on brand new home appliances. Only two out of the entire list of appliance warranty companies provided warranty extension options, but only when the initial coverage duration was over.
Comparison Between Home Appliance Warranty Plans And Extended Appliance Warranty Plans
When choosing a home appliance contract, you can choose from a list of home appliance coverage plans that vary in almost all companies, based on their different level of coverage.
Based on our data, every company has an average of three plans which we studied. These can be any designated plan for appliances, such as the Bronze Care Plan that was offered by the Select Home Warranty or the combo plan that offered some home system plans in addition to the complete home appliance protection offers. The Premier Plan was one of the best home warranty plans that were offered by First American Home Warranty.
If under any circumstances, the appliance that you wish to warranty is not available or included in any of their offered plans, you can simply add that home appliance item to your regular coverage from their provided add-on menu. It is that simple. For an extended warranty, in most common conditions there is one plan that usually covers a given item, allowing you to choose any one home appliance that you wish to warranty. Out of the 16 home warranty companies that we chose, only Home Warranty Inc. provides a customized plan to its customers. 7 other companies offered a limited add-on option for any of your chosen appliances. All other remaining companies offered only the purchasing of an old pre-packaged home appliance protection plan to their customers.
Comparing Duration Of Coverage For Both Home Appliance Insurance Types
Now that both the plans and the coverage are clear, the next question that we wanted to check was if both the insurance types provided same coverage duration or not.
From our data and research, we found that typically, a home protection plan is provided only for 12 months. A few companies offer an additional 1 or 2 months coverage to premium customers or first time customers, taking the coverage period to 13 or 14 months. Also, in most of the cases, an appliance warranty gets automatically extended for another period of 12 months, if not cancelled.
On the contrary, an appliance extended warranty offers coverage for 12, 24, 36 or 60 months, based on different companies and their plans. Customers, usually have a very limited option when it comes to extension. And, if the extension plan is available, the company contacts you via mail or message around 30 days before your current contract expires, asking your permission for the next extension.
Costing – Extended Appliance Warranty Vs Home Appliance Warranty
What is Warranty Premium?
A warranty premium is a basic warranty cost or amount that you pay for the chosen warranty term. To understand the difference in the costing, we decided to compare the cost of extended warranty and home appliance warranty. We calculated the annual premiums for the basic 8 home appliances mentioned above.
From the 16 companies we researched, not all companies offered the same coverage period. Also, they offered coverage to different appliances. In order to compare the companies rightfully, we calculated the following:
– For companies offering different coverage periods for the appliances, we divided the mentioned premium by the term and multiply the amount by 12 months. So, if a company has a premium of $700 for 14 months, the effective annual premium calculated for the company will be $600.
– Companies that covered less than 8 home appliances, their effective premium was divided by the total number of covered items and then multiplied by 8. So, if a company that covers 6 appliances and has a premium of $600, the effective annual premium calculated for that company will be $800.
Conclusion:
Final Words On The Comparison Between Home Appliance Warranties And Extended Warranties
Finding the best home appliance insurance is very important to ensure the smooth running of your home and lives. And in order to search the best insurance companies and plans, we studied and researched the terms and conditions of our 16 chosen home warranty companies and 3 extended warranty companies which provided us coverage for the 8 most basic home appliances.
Which of these companies offers you the best warranty, mostly depends on your needs and the services you are looking for. For instance, if you are looking forward to insuring just 1 or 2 appliances in your home, then an extended appliance warranty proves to be the best choice for you.
For customers who wish to cover all their home appliances in the house, a home warranty company that offers complete protection seems perfect for you.
All that you really need to remember here is that an extended warranty is available exclusively to only those customers who have purchased brand new appliances. On the contrary, a home appliance protection plan will offer coverage, even if you have purchased an appliance some time earlier.
