American Home Shield Reviews

I was thankful for the replacement, then I said, "Look, you guys, you're gonna put in a basic unit just like what was originally installed." They said, "Yes, because that's what we do. Whatever the basic current is, that's what we do." That's usually better than the basic original, which was 30 years ago, so I can't complain. But I said, "Look it, I'll pay for the difference to get an energy efficient unit and get it one size up." They wouldn't allow it, and I don't understand what the issue could possibly be. All they would allow was replacement of a basic original, because that's what I had. They've done that several times on several different items in the house.

We've had a couple of occasions where I've had to call and threaten American Home Shield too. Because it's Friday afternoon or Saturday night, and nobody can come out, or it's the old, "You'll be contacted within 24 hours." 48 hours later, we're going. "Isn't somebody supposed to contact me?" It's always the same, "Oh, well, we didn't get that call," or "We sent that call to the wrong, whatever," or "Well, sorry for that. It just got lost."

People make mistakes. I understand that and I don't have an issue with that. That's why I'm still with American Home Shield 30 years later. It just gets to be a bit of a problem when it happens to you personally. When it's the middle of summer, it's Friday afternoon, and your air conditioner goes out, and the best they can do is, "Well, you have to wait till Monday or Tuesday for that 24 hours, 48 hours to actually kick in." Are you kidding me? I say, "I'll pay the difference. Send them out immediately." On the call, "Oh, we can't do that." Unfortunately, whenever we've had an air conditioning issue or a backed up plumbing, it always happens Friday night or Saturday morning, and we always get caught on this 24-business hours.

The call may go into the company, but your call gets buried by all of the real emergencies that people called in and are willing to pay for that Friday, Saturday, or first thing Monday order. Yours just gets shuffled down in there, because you're just a routine call. So you don't get that call till either late Monday or first thing Tuesday maybe. So, now you've been without AC till, at least, Wednesday, and they don't have the part. It has to be ordered. This happened twice with my air conditioner, the first unit that we replaced. The parts that they needed were in town, but the company that was doing the repair work only ran to that distributor twice a week. I had to wait till it was their turn to go to that place to get the part, and then I had to get put on the schedule.

Using my example, a guy comes out on Tuesday morning and says, "It needs part X, Y, Z. I'll place the order." Guess what? Tuesday mornings is when they go to this company to get parts, and then again on Thursday. So now, I have to wait till the Thursday run to go get parts, and then they have to put me on the schedule once the part comes in, which means the part comes in Thursday evening. They put me on the schedule, but Friday is full, so guess what day it is now? The following Monday, because Saturday and Sunday are emergency calls, and a routine part replacement is not an emergency. My furnace or my AC has now been going on seven days, and I ain't gonna get the part put in for 10 days. That's American Home Shield's business model and I don't like it, but I accept it. Still, they could do better.

I've also had a year where I paid my $450, and I may have used them twice. I didn't need a service, but I go back to when I first bought the house that we're presently in. The house had issues, and the people that originally owned the house either lived with the issues or didn't consider them issues. I had somebody from American Home Shield out here every other week for the house. We had them out here for plumbing issues and for minor electrical issues, and a year like that, $75 a call, it's real easy to break even. I had a plumbing issue one time, where they just had to replace a water spigot. I didn't know if that was covered or not, but I called them out anyway.

The guy came out and said, "No, this isn't covered." Just getting a water spigot replaced because of the freeze was a $300 expense to me. American Home Shield makes sense if you've got an older home and you might have issues. They have worked on a dishwasher, a microwave, my refrigerator, and my washer and dryer over the course of 30 years. When you add up what these appliances could have cost me in terms of expense, it makes sense to have something like American Home Shield. It doesn't make sense when I have that year where I didn't need them at all, but I cannot predict when it's gonna be that year, so I just gamble and pay it. If I sit down and add it all up, I come out ahead.

A & B Plumbing had a late appointment to come out. It was almost 8:00 when they came. They said they were rotting out the connector in the washroom, which they said was successful. When they left, I started the machine and I was having other issues. I called the tech straight back and he did not answer. He shot me a text message telling me that he was on the phone. I texted him that I was beginning to have some issues in the bathroom because it was beginning to bubble in the toilet and it was beginning to come up in the bathtub. He texted me back and asked if I had a cleanout in my yard. I stepped out there and looked. He said to send him a picture, which I did. The tech then told me to screw off the cleanout. This would be something that he should have come back to screw off to see. However, my last text to him at that time was, "I don't think I have the strength to do it." There was no other response after that. That was a Saturday.

The next Saturday, I tried the machine again. When I did, it was not only bubbling and not only spilling over in the washroom. This time, the toilet was filling up and about to overflow. I tried to call the tech again but got no response. I call Home Shield and explained to them what had transpired between the communication between the two of us. They tried to contact him then they said it was the weekend so they were going to try and contact him on that Monday. I kept calling back and they said that he had closed the ticket saying that I did not have a cleanout in my yard and that the only way to do anything was to do it from the roof, which was not covered by a warranty. Home Shield was gonna send the ticket back to the etch and give him an opportunity to recant to fix this.

When I called back again, Home Shield said the tech was still stuck with saying I did not have a cleanout. I didn't want the original to come back out if they went to that extreme of not coming back to see what my issue was. Home Shield was going to move the claim up to a second opinion. K & S came out. I showed their tech the cleanout and he was trying to work with it. He established that a camera and something else he said would be needed to see what was causing it to not reach from the actual cleanout to the main cleanout, which was the city's line. He called Home Shield while he was there to explain to them that I did have the cleanout. He sent them pictures and he was stating that perhaps their feet need to have been held to the fire for putting me through all of that because the other tech didn't even come back out.

I'm still dealing with this and K & S did me a little favor. He took the cap off of the cleanout. But it's in my driveway between me and my neighbor's house. I tried not to do anything but just normal stuff, like taking a shower and flushing and not using the dishwasher. I've been having to go to the laundromat and spending about $30 trying to wash then I can come back and use my dryer. I've been dealing with this for over a month.

I had this problem before with my heating system. Someone came out and they gave me a little runaround. He would come out, do something, and get the unit blowing for a minute then it stops. From my perspective, it looks as if the tech wanted me to purchase a whole system and I was a little concerned with that. I paid him the service charge and I asked Home Shield not to send the tech back out. Home Shield accommodated me with recognizing that I was having an issue with the tech. They understood the pain and that I went through some cold days because of the tech filibustering.

Home sent me someone else who immediately told me, "I know what that is" and fixed it right away. The first guy told me that the system was so old but I told him that when I had an inspector in here, he didn't tell me that because I recently bought the house. I asked the second guy for his opinion on the system. He assured me that the system would probably outlast me. There is nothing wrong with it. That gave me a little bit more comfort.

Home Shield was a part of my closing when I bought this house in 2019 and I've kept it ever since. I love them. With my last renewal, I moved up to platinum and I'm thinking, "I'm not only paying $75 for our service call, but I'm paying 100."Where Home Shield has held up their end of the bargain is where you can replace a person and give me someone else then I can move on.

In the meantime, I got a new bill for 56.99 again and they were saying that they didn't see where the guy I talked to had made this adjustment But I got a new contract agreement with 50.99 on it and they couldn't explain that. I then asked adding the electronic package on and they said they could add it on but I'd have to pay the whole amount and it wouldn't take effect until 2022. So, I've got to pay you this entire amount for 200 and something dollars and it wouldn't take place. So, I called back because when you call back, you get somebody different every time. I talked to this girl and she said she could add the electronic package on starting September 26th of this year and my bill was going to go to 68.99. I said that was fine. But she called me back and said she wasn't able to do that. That was a mistake and I told her that not to add the electronic package on anymore as I didn't want it.

Then, I had a claim for my hot water heater that started leaking. I called AHS and they sent this company out called Action Mechanical Services. And when they told me that was who it was going to be, I went on the Better Business Bureau to check everybody out. Action Mechanical Services had all kinds of complaints. Then, I talked to a relative of mine and she said they came to her house, and they were terrible. They didn't believe the COVID was real and they didn't want to wear any masks. So, when the guy came out here, I asked if he had a mask and he said he didn't need it. He said he had COVID and he already had his vaccination. He then looked at the hot water heater, took a picture, and was here for about five minutes. That company was awful and I don't ever want them again.

At another time, my faucet on the outside broke where my husband couldn't cut the water off. Then, the other one in the back of the house is leaking. So, I put in a claim online for the faucets. But Action Mechanical popped up as my contractor, so I called AHS and told them that I didn't want them to come. But when I called, the representative said that they don't cover our faucets outside. But I told him that my sister that lives over in Jennings, Missouri said that they fixed hers. He then told me to hold on and I could barely understand him either, but he was better that the previous rep I talked to. When he came back, he confirmed that they do not cover the faucets on the outside. So, I told him no to take that $100 out of my account because as soon as you call or place a service online, they immediately take that $100. So, they canceled the claim and they did not take the $100.

After that, I got an email from American Home Shield saying that I needed to contact them about my service request as soon as possible. So, I called and I got this young lady who I could not understand at all. She was saying that our part was going to be $800 but I didn't understand what it was for. And we went on and on until she finally said that they could just give us a pay-out. I told her to send me what they were going to pay for the hot water heater and they sent me a check for $596, which did not pay for my hot water heater. So, we went to another company and AHS said that whoever we were going to use, we got to send them their complete invoice or they'd see what they did because now, I would be covering this water heater. So, I sent that to them and they sent me the little $596 that wasn't enough to pay for the hot water heater.

I also had to call AHS when my furnace wouldn't cut on and they didn't send that Action Mechanical out. It was another company called Budget Air Conditioning Heating and Plumbing and they were really good. The ladies in the office where very professional and they had good customer service. The guy that came out said it was the motor and he put a new one in. He also put his mask on and we talked about that before they came. I asked if their technician had a mask and their rep said he did. She also said they wanted to make sure that no one in our home was sick and I told her that I'd have on a mask too. They were very nice and courteous. Everything went well and the furnace worked really well until Friday. But they put it in on November 1st and Friday was November 13th.

That Friday, the house was cold and my husband had even turned the thermostat up to 85 to get the furnace to come on but it wouldn't. So, I called AHS and they didn't charge me again. Their rep said that I wouldn't get charged $100 because this was what they called a recall. And they were going to have the same people, which is Budget Heating and Cooling. So, I'm waiting on them today.

All in all, the biggest issue I had with AHS was having several different people telling me something different about me trying to add on the electronics package and with my monthly bill. It was just so confusing. But I haven't canceled and I'm going to keep them because I have family members that have them and they haven't had any issues.

With the provider I had before, you can call your own people to come out and you have to pay for the service, then they will reimburse you for part of it. That happened with my washer. To get it fixed was going to cost $600 and they only wanted to pay 400. I don't need anything like that and wondered what would happen if I don't have all that money upfront. That was when my sister said that with American Home Shield, you pay your deductible and they send somebody out. Then they just take care of it. So, I said I was going to switch to them. Then, I talked to my sister-in-law, she has American Home Shield and she said they had to buy her a new stove and she didn't have any issues. So, that's why I went to American Home Shield and I haven't had a real issue with them yet. So far, it seems like things have been working pretty good and I would refer them to someone.

I called and I made another service call for them to come and look at my water heater. I was right. They sent United Air out and the tech got from underneath and said, "This is shot. It's gone." I figured it would be because it was old. He wrote the ticket up and then he said they would let American Home Shield know what was going on and American Home Shield would contact me. I had to end up calling American Home Shield to find out what was going on. I was still getting water in my floor every day.

Once I called American Home Shield, they said it was up to the contractor. They had told the contractor what they cover, which is a new heater and removing the old heater and the installation of the new one. Then to make it up to compliance, I would have to pay out of pocket to the contractor. So I said, "Okay. Well, let me call the contractor because you all are telling me what you're going to do, but you're not telling me anything about the contractor's price." They said, "Well, you have to call the contractor."

I called and talked to the contractor. He gave me a price. I told him, "Give me a couple of days to think about it, because it's quite a bit of money. Well, okay. I'm gonna have to talk it over with my husband. In the meantime, I will call American Home Shield and let them know, ask them how much time do I have to make up my mind. Because I want to go over it with my husband and all." I called them back and told them that I hadn't made a final decision, and I would get back to them. With me saying that, the gentleman that I talked to had put in a cash out slip. I never asked anybody for a cash out slip. When I didn't hear from them, I called them back the day before yesterday. I was like, "Okay. Can somebody tell me what's going on? Because I've talked to my husband, we're gonna go ahead with the contract, so I need to know what's going on." They said, "Oh, well, you requested the cash out." But I didn't request such thing.

Yesterday, I had to call American Home Shield back to find out, "Well, what's going on with the cash out? Because you're telling me I have to wait on the email from you all to decline it and tell you I'm gonna go on with the estimate and stuff that I was given. And I talked to you days ago, so it doesn't take that long to send me a damn email." The rep said, "Well, give it another 48 hours." I said, "No. I will not because my floor is wet and yours isn't." This morning, I woke up and called American Home Shield back again because I've never received anything once again from them. I talked to this young lady, and she went on and put the order through for me with United Air Temp so I can go ahead and start getting the work done. She sent them an email. The contractor was great. This guy would call me. He would update me.

I kept American Home Shield for the simple fact that I felt like in the long run, if something did happen, I'd have some protection. I just would like for them to have better response time and better communication. I'd also like them to go through the verbals when they're making this contract. If I call and I ask them, "Well, what's covered," and they tell me, "Your stove, your heater, your air, your this, your that," they should let me know, " We cover the water unit itself. But if there's any extra work beyond that, that's an out of pocket cost for you." They should not have me thinking that I'm paying them this money for a month, year after year, and then when something breaks in my house, they're gonna tell me, "Oh, we're gonna replace your water heater, and we're going to replace them to take it out and the installation cost. But any other work besides that, that's on you." What the hell am I paying them for if they didn't tell me that beforehand?

People need to know that beforehand, especially during this time going through this great pandemic. People are already stretched. People can't even afford half the things they could afford. People are out here surviving, just trying to keep a roof over their heads. American Home Shield needs to be more compassionate to their customers, instead of more compassionate for their company. Before now, I would tell people, "Oh, I think it's probably a pretty good investment." But now, I would tell them to weigh their options and look into other people that offer the same type of service and make them thoroughly go over that contract with them.

I have two American Home Shield accounts, one for my house and one for my mother's house. On my mother's, there was a claim for a built-in microwave. My sister was there and they told my sister it couldn't be repaired and that they would replace it. I've been trying to get it replaced for a year and apparently, they went to Parts and Parts didn't think it was clear that it needed to be replaced or that the guy couldn't fix it. They never called me back and agreed to that. I've been calling them monthly for a year now. Now, they say it's too late for it. But it's like my washing machine. It's now going on three months and it's not fixed.

My mother's hot water heater blew. The guys that came out on the plumbing knew it needed another one and I've called American Home Shield twice. With the hot water heater, American Home Shield pays for the replacement but you always pay the upcharge for the plumbing and technician. I called American Home Shield yesterday and they didn't know what the quote was. They said AZ Plumbing was supposed to call me but no one's called me to give me a number or what I need to do. I called AZ Plumbing and asked. They said I had to pay the upcharge first which was $404.25. Once I paid it, they'd schedule it. I paid the money and scheduled it for Friday.

As long as you're a squeaky wheel with the contractors, then you can get service. I had the appointment scheduled for tomorrow for my AC unit between 12:00 and 4:00, and the guy called back and said, "I got you changed to 9:00 to 12:00." I said, "I can't do 9:00 to 12:00. I told you that before because I have a doctor's appointment at 8:45. There's zero chance that I can do that morning slot." He said, "Then we can get you in two weeks." I said, "No, you can't. You can give me the original slot I told you before." We finally agreed that he'd do 10:30. Tomorrow, when he comes out to fix my air conditioner, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll be able to fix it there or maybe they'll order a part then I'll be without it for a couple of weeks.

The service on American Home Shield is good but it takes a long time to get things fixed especially this year. The first time, the AC unit was broken for three weeks before they could fix it and get parts in. Then last year, it was only broken for two days before they could fix it. But they always fix it and it always costs less than buying a new unit.

The contract is well worth it financially because American Home Shield does cover all the things that are going to go wrong. There is always a service charge so you don't want to call them for something minor because the service charge is material. But generally, it's a really good value for the service. The only big problem is nobody wants to replace anything even though that's usually the easiest and probably the least cost way. For my mom's house, things would break in the house and it would be 1,400 here and 1,300 there and 1,500 there. With the hot water heater, I knew there'd be an upcharge and the upcharge is $900 to bring it to a totally different code.

American Home Shield has been very helpful whenever I've called and tried to find where things are. When I call them, they're very patient and I go through every problem I have every time I call them which these days seems to be daily. They're polite and they tell me what to do. They will track down the vendors, find them and try to escalate. If you don't like a vendor you're working with, they will switch the vendor out for you. Without exception, they do everything possible on what they're doing.

But American Home Shield probably doesn't pay their contractors that much. Their contractors may not communicate as well as they should. Some are good but most of them, you get what you pay for and they've negotiated contracts that are a good price for them. That means that you need to sit on top of the contractor that American Home Shield selects and you have to plan that it's going to take longer than if you just called somebody and did it in cash. But the differential in cost, if you want to be able to plan something and budget, is well worth it. If you have an older property, you save three to four times what the all in amount that you pay to American Home Shield. For my mom's house, it went from costing me $3,000 to $6,000 a year to something that's $75 a month plus $100 a charge. That's a much more manageable thing. I would definitely recommend American Home Shield. I have friends that have some competing services and their issues are more than mine.

A few years ago, we had a continuing problem with our heat and air. It’s 0 degrees and you're worried about the pipes freezing. You can't get anybody out here for three or four days and that was a huge problem. It was the same for the summer when it was 90 in the house because the air conditioning tore up. You don't wanna wait three or four days.

That aside, the warranty company does what it says. They contact some company to come out and fix whatever is the problem. Usually, it's a part that's needed. Sometimes, they have to replace small appliances. We had to have our garbage disposal replaced. We had a claim where a gentleman came out and fixed our washer and he was very good. He's been out to our house a previous time several years ago to fix our dryer. He's very knowledgeable and professional. I was very pleased with him.

Our heat and air conditioning furnace went out five times in six months until the techs finally figured out the problem. The unit is an old system and it should have been replaced. But American Home Shield does not wanna come up with a big chunk of money to do that. The unit has to die and be irreplaceable before they do anything. On the whole, I would tell friends to do American Home Shield because it's a really good deal. The service is good and I've been happy. But they should keep in mind that if they want immediate service for things, it's gonna be at least a minimum of 24 hours before they can get someone to come and fix whatever is broken.

The only complaint I have is the surprises. With our hot water heater, there was an extra $300 of things that weren't covered, which AHS calls add-ons. Our plumbing was soldered instead of threaded, so they had to charge us more to do that. There were things that weren't covered. And I know if something like our air conditioning goes out, AHS pays to replace the AC, but they won't pay for the crane to bring it in or a lot of the work that is done. It would be nice if there was at least a policy that we could consider that covered everything. It might be worth our while to pay a little higher premium if we knew that everything would be covered, including all the labor and equipment.

With the dishwasher, the issue we had was parts weren't available. They brought in a new computer part and put that in. That didn't work, so that had to be reordered. So, it was very long before we finally just got a replacement dishwasher. And for the replacement, if we don't go with AHS' suggested replacement, the out of pocket expense is astronomical. But overall, we've been happy with AHS. The premium to have somebody come out is decent. So, I recommend them to other people. And because on our other house which we had for nine years, I always recommend to anybody, new home or not, to get a home warranty and I usually recommend AHS.

I talked to somebody at American Home Shield three times on Monday and I talked to the garage door opener tech twice on Monday. I told all of them that the spring was broken and that it was visible. I could see it. It was not the first time it was broken. No one told me that springs are not covered. I would recommend AHS to my friends but I would also tell them to research thoroughly to see if an item is covered. They should do their due diligence before they submit a claim and lose their $100 because if something isn't covered, it doesn't tell you.

My real experience using AHS was a few weeks ago. Other than that, I've just been paying for it and I haven't used it until recently. But it’s the comfort in knowing that if something does go wrong, it falls on one of those categories that they provide that you will have some type of support. You're not out there dangling around thinking of what you’re gonna do.