Have had them with every house I bought, for one year. Never used it at all.

Most replacements for appliances are considered an "upgrade". The warranty doesn't cover "upgrades". A hot water heater is pretty simple, straight across, costs about $1000 for a new one installed. So...subtrack the $500 deductible....and calculate how many years until you've paid $500? since that's what you'd save if you ever need that service. About two years?

How old is the equipment in your condo and how likely is it that one of the covered items may die?

When we bought our townhouse last year, the seller did include a years' coverage. The appliances were all about 20 years old and I did have the dishwasher and dryer serviced.

It worked for the dishwasher but not the dryer.

They did end up paying I think $500 or so since the dryer could not be repaired. The dishwasher was made functional. I should preface this with saying that I knew I would be replacing the appliances but not immediately.

Since I didn't pay for the policy, it was good because I got the $500 towards a new dryer. However, you do have to use a particular repair company and I thought they were really pretty lousy. Available appointments were more than a week out, and when they came and determined it needed a specific part, that had to be ordered and then another service call needed to be scheduled. Not the most efficient. In my opinion it is not worth paying for the coverage. If I had paid, then the $5oo I would have paid was what was applied to the new appliance. The lack of timely and efficient service is not worth having to deal with.

I think these companies are good at ripping people off and I'm sorry to see oodles of commercials for them (or is it one?) on the tv stations with older shows.

Elmer, I agree with your experience. Here in Canada the customer service these days is terrible. You'd think that businesses would be doing everything they could to attract new customers and keep old ones coming back. An extra year of coverage doesn't justify the $'s spent especially with the deductable. If it doesn't last a year the company who sold it to you should be replacing it on their tab, not repairing it. I miss Sears!

I ended up keep my old policy that didn't offer appliance warranty.

Elmer, that's pretty much what I had except with mine I didn't pay any fee for service when they came. It was the long drawn out process with the assessing, ordering parts, coming back, that was so ridiculous.

In our previous home in NJ , where we lived for 30 years, the utility company actually had a service -called Worry Free- available for appliances and that was wonderful. You could select the appliances to be covered They usually had parts on the truck with them. Once or twice they had to order a part it was usually received quickly and the appointment was scheduled for that visit right away. They also really fixed the appliances properly. It seems to be a regional thing because we were looking for that here and it doesn't exist.