American Home Shield Home Warranty Review

Home warranties can be helpful if you own or purchase a home. They help to cover the repair and replacement costs of expensive items like broken refrigerators and air conditioners that your homeowner’s insurance policy won’t reimburse.

If you’re researching the best home warranties, you may come across American Home Shield Home Warranty. Read on to learn whether this company’s offerings  might be worth considering for your home and budget.

American Home Shield Home Warranty Overview

American Home Shield is a pioneering company that offered its first – and, the company claims, the first-ever – home warranty in 1971. The American Home Shield Home Warranty is a purchase to help cover the costs of repairing a home or replacing items damaged by regular wear and tear.

An American Shield home warranty is designed to help you pay for heating and cooling systems, kitchen and laundry appliances, roof leaks and more. American Home Shield also offers additional coverage for items you have in your homes like electronic components, a pool, a spa or a septic pump.

Here are some of the pros and cons of American Home Shield Warranty plans:

 American Home Shield Home Warranty coverage

American Home Shield warranty plans cover a wide range of items not covered by traditional insurance policies. For example, plumbing, electrical and heating and cooling systems within your home are included in each American Home Shield protection plan.

What it offers

American Home Shield offers three plan levels. As you move up in the plan categories, you get more coverage for more items and systems within your home.

Standard in each plan is coverage for normal wear and tear on:

• Heating and cooling: Air conditioners, heating units and ductwork.
• Electrical: Attic exhaust, venting and fans, main breakers and fuses, doorbells, interior electrical lines, ceiling fans and garage door openers.
• Plumbing: Water heaters, interior plumbing, toilets, faucets, whirlpool tub motor and parts.

What it doesn’t offer

While the services and repairs American Home Shield offers are comprehensive, some items are not covered by any of its plans or add-ons. Home items or issues not eligible for coverage are:

• Floors
• Walls
• Windows
• Sprinkler systems
• Home exterior items
• Mold
• Pest damage
• Home management systems
• Routine maintenance

American Home Shield also doesn’t cover unknown pre-existing conditions. For example, if you had a cracked water line under your house you didn’t know about and purchased a warranty after it occurred, the warranty would not cover it.

Warranty coverage types

The three coverage plans are Shield Silver, Shield Gold and Shield Platinum. Silver is the lowest tier, so it has less coverage than the other two plans, while each plan adds more as you go up a tier.

Appliances that are add-ons for the lowest tier include all kitchen and laundry appliances. If you want to cover them, you’ll need to purchase an add-on that covers them or choose one of the higher-tier plans.

Additionally, kitchen and laundry appliances have a $3,000 per-item limit. While that may not cover all such items, that limit (like others from American Home Shield) are actually more generous than those of some competitors. Still, if you prefer to have more expensive appliances in your home, you should expect to cover any amount over the repair limit.

The items that need to have coverage purchased as an add-on for all tiers are:

• Pool/spa
• Guest units
• Septic tank and pump
• Well pump
• Roof leak repair (included in the highest tier)

Through American Home Shield, you can also purchase discounted maintenance services for door rekeys, heat and air conditioning tuneup discounts and air filters.

Shield Silver

The lowest tier of warranty, the Shield Silver plan, covers 14 items and systems in your home:

• Air conditioners
• Heating Units
• Ductwork
• Attic exhaust
• Attic Venting
• Attic fans
• Main breakers, boxes and fuses
• Doorbells
• Interior electrical lines
• Ceiling fans
• Garage door opener
• Water heater
• Interior plumbing
• Toilets
• Faucets
• Whirlpool tub motor and parts

Shield Gold

The second tier plan adds these kitchen and laundry appliances to the list of covered items:

• Refrigerators
• Ranges/cooktops
• Ovens
• Dishwashers
• Mounted microwaves
• Garbage disposals
• Hot and cold water dispensers
• Washers
• Dryers

Shield Platinum

Platinum is American Home Shield’s top-tier plan and adds still more coverage. In addition to all items covered by the Silver and Gold plans, the Platinum plan covers/provides the following:

• Roof leak repairs
• HVAC tune-ups
• Unlimited air conditioning refrigerant
• Code violations and permits

Customer reviews of American Home Warranty

Customer opinions of American Home Shield, as posted on review sites, are a mixed bag. Some are quite positive while others voice considerable concern and dissatisfaction.

More than 3,000 pages of reviews and more than 11,000 yearly ratings about American Home Shield’s warranty service have been filed on ConsumerAffairs.com. The reviewers and raters average a combined 4.2 out of 5 stars.

Reviewers on that site, then, are generally satisfied with the support, service, maintenance and replacements they receive from American Home Shield. There are instances of problems with particular technicians and repairs, but those are more an issue with the contractors American Home Shield selects than with the warranty company itself.

Several consumer reviews mention maintenance, repair and replacement turnaround times as problem areas. A number of warranty holders report that getting one of American Home Shield’s technicians to their home was significantly slower than the typical time when you engage your own repairperson, without a warranty.

Reviews and comments on the Better Business Bureau website are even more negative overall. The BBB has given a decent accreditation rating of “B” to AHS. There are, however, more than 27,000 complaints filed against the company. Upwards of 11,000 customer reviews are present on the site, and they collectively rate the company at a mediocre 2.25 out of 5 stars on average.

To American Home Shield’s credit, they have responded and worked to solve every complaint on the Better Business Bureaus website within the confines of the customer’s policies.

In California, complaints against American Home Shield have prompted the Department of Insurance to open an inquiry. Besides ongoing complaints, the department has raised concern that the company has offered kickbacks to real estate brokerages to encourage new homebuyers to purchase plans from AHS Home Warranty.

The number of complaints filed, and the response and care (or not) accorded to each one, suggest that American Home Shield has work to do. It may need to overhaul the internal processes it uses to receive, track, process, resolve and close claims.

How we evaluated American Home Warranty plans

American Home Shield plans were evaluated based on what each plan included or excluded, and at what cost. We also considered the volume and flavor of consumer reviews and other reported experiences for the company. We looked at how often company representatives responded to customer reviews, including whether they offered assistance to the reviewer, along with gratitude for leaving a review.

American Home Shield Warranty Summary

The American Home Shield Home Warranty is backed by a company with more than 50 years of experience in coverage for homes. The company offers warranty packages that cover most of the issues that arise during home ownership, at reasonable prices. The Silver package is reasonably-priced and covers all of the basics. The Gold package adds laundry and kitchen appliances. And the Platinum package covers everything from roof leaks to plumbing line failures under the house.

All that said, American Home Shield, like some other home-warranty companies, has a patchy record when it comes to customer service ands honoring its obligations in a timely way. Based on its online reviews, it needs to overhaul its processes and work on resolving claims promptly before a hearty recommendation of the company is merited.