Home Warantee contractors

[Sharpie]

I've been playing with the idea of applying to be one of the ECs a Home Warranty group uses. Does anybody have experience working for these type of organizations?

This is the type of organization that, when you buy your home, you pay for a warranty. Then when something that's covered goes bad or needs some servicing you pay your deductible and the warranty company pays the contractor for their work.

 

[charlietuna]

Ask your self one question: How offen do you need a maintainance electrician at a residence? Not a remodel--just maintainance??? I had a guy working for me and he came to me to notify me that he would be leaving the company? I asked him why, and he told me he was going into business on his own! He gave me a business card "VC Pipebenders" ???? Then he told me he had bought a used pipe bender off a retiring electrical contractor and he was going to bend pipe for all the contractors in town. Three months later he was back working for me!

 

[Rewire]

We do several of these a year usually bad switches or breakers tripping.Not a steady source of income but income none the less.They will only pay for a repair not an extra circuit or any upgrade.

 

[active1]

I have got phone calls from some warranty companies. They say you get $x amount for a service call. I'm guessing it was $50 or $100 a few years ago. Anything above that has to be approved. You fill out the forms and get a check in 6-8 weeks. If you wanted the check faster they wanted to take a percentage maybe 5% from your payment for express payment. So I did a google search about the comapny. The it seeemed to work like this from the complaints:

The customer calls warranty co. and the contractor is dispached.
The contractor collects his service call fee from the HO. The service call fee is the same amount as the HO's deductable.
If the contractor finds the repair is more then the deductable they call the warranty co.
The warranty co. puts them on indefinate hold.
After an hour on the cell phone the contractor gives up a leaves.
Now the HO is pissed and feels ripped off by the contractor and warranty company.
Then the HO keeps calling the contractor.

Lots of stories here:
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=304
Not just this company but you get the idea.

 

[petersonra]

No personal experience on either side, but my understanding is there are good warranty companies and bad ones.

I once heard from a guy that was a plumber that he got fairly steady work from one. Slow to pay, but no problems getting paid. Didn't pay as much as he would have liked, but didn't have to work to get the business either. Not enough to be FT at it, but a nice supplement to his income.

 

[MJW]

I have got phone calls from some warranty companies. They say you get $x amount for a service call. I'm guessing it was $50 or $100 a few years ago. Anything above that has to be approved. You fill out the forms and get a check in 6-8 weeks. If you wanted the check faster they wanted to take a percentage maybe 5% from your payment for express payment. So I did a google search about the comapny. The it seeemed to work like this from the complaints:

The customer calls warranty co. and the contractor is dispached.
The contractor collects his service call fee from the HO. The service call fee is the same amount as the HO's deductable.
If the contractor finds the repair is more then the deductable they call the warranty co.
The warranty co. puts them on indefinate hold.
After an hour on the cell phone the contractor gives up a leaves.
Now the HO is pissed and feels ripped off by the contractor and warranty company.
Then the HO keeps calling the contractor.

Lots of stories here:
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=304
Not just this company but you get the idea.

I did some work for one of these companies 8 or 10 years ago and that is exactly how it worked. When you finally got through to the waranty company the claim was almost always not covered. At that point you could quote the work and they could pay you to do it anyway. By this time most homeowners were pissed and didn't want anything to do with you. I felt it was doing more harm to the image of my company than generating income and told them I couldn't take thier calls anymore.

 

[TOOL_5150]

A guy I used to work with used to work for a contractor that did home warranty work. He said It was easy money and the work wasnt all that bad. I guess he happed to be one of the lucky ones.

~Matt

 

[Len]

Home Warranty

Home Warranty

The only one who makes money is the Home Warranty Co.

 

[Sharpie]

Thanks everybody.

 

[growler]

I did some work for one of these companies 8 or 10 years ago and that is exactly how it worked. When you finally got through to the waranty company the claim was almost always not covered. At that point you could quote the work and they could pay you to do it anyway. By this time most homeowners were pissed and didn't want anything to do with you. I felt it was doing more harm to the image of my company than generating income and told them I couldn't take thier calls anymore.

That's very close to my experience with home warranty companies. I didn't like it.

I think the problem may be this, the warranty companies that call around all the time trying to get someone to work for them are the very one's no one would want to work for in the first place. There is almost nothing covered under warranty so you don't end up with happy customers.

 

[pbeasley]

From a consumer standpoint, all home warranty companies ar definitely NOT created equal. AHS was below average. First American exceeded expectations and we like the contrctors better. Take it FWIW.

 

[tshea]

I have got phone calls from some warranty companies. They say you get $x amount for a service call. I'm guessing it was $50 or $100 a few years ago. Anything above that has to be approved. You fill out the forms and get a check in 6-8 weeks. If you wanted the check faster they wanted to take a percentage maybe 5% from your payment for express payment. So I did a google search about the comapny. The it seeemed to work like this from the complaints:

The customer calls warranty co. and the contractor is dispached.
The contractor collects his service call fee from the HO. The service call fee is the same amount as the HO's deductable.
If the contractor finds the repair is more then the deductable they call the warranty co.
The warranty co. puts them on indefinate hold.
After an hour on the cell phone the contractor gives up a leaves.
Now the HO is pissed and feels ripped off by the contractor and warranty company.
Then the HO keeps calling the contractor.

Lots of stories here:
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=304
Not just this company but you get the idea.

I can confirm this is true. I used to do some warranty work. We finally told AHS to "take a hike!" I threatened to sue them because they were holding payment for over 90 days.

I agree that their tactics were not very good for our image either. They call us once a year to try to recruit us back in. We use our pat answer--"Not interested." "Why?" --"Not interested."