How to Avoid Expensive Home Appliance Repair Bills

If you are a homeowner, you know that paying for an unexpected home appliance repair is a real concern. Having a home appliance warranty from First American can help ease that worry. When a covered appliance suddenly breaks down, a home warranty provides budget protection for appliances so that the cost to repair or replace doesn’t eat up all of your savings.

A home warranty is a service contract that helps cover the repair or replacement of many home appliances you use every day. Without warranty coverage, dealing with home appliance repairs means finding a qualified technician on your own, followed by a potentially big hit to your wallet from a bill often in the hundreds of dollars.

When you choose First American Home Warranty, you are making a sound choice for your home appliance protection plan. We’ve been an industry leader for more than 40 years and maintain a large network of prescreened service professionals. We provide some of the most generous coverage limits in the industry. And unlike other home warranty companies, we don’t require home inspections or maintenance records to take care of covered items. We also don’t disqualify appliances based on age when they fail due to normal wear and tear.

Home Appliance Repair isn’t Cheap

Have you added up what you’ve spent on home appliance repairs over the past few years? Those repair bills can often be shocking to see on an individual basis, but the amount of money Americans spend on home maintenance, including appliance repairs, is equally stunning. HomeGuide, which tracks millions of estimates that homeowners get from contractors, reports that average home maintenance costs in the U.S. can range from $4,000 to $22,000 per year.

Keeping even that minimum range of discretionary funds available at any time is more than many homeowners can manage. When an unexpected appliance repair bill lands on top of other home costs, it can deal a real blow to even the best-planned budgets.

A First American home warranty plan can be a good complement to your repair savings fund, helping protect your budget from many of the bills you would otherwise pay for home appliance repairs.

Home Appliances, like the Weather, Are Unpredictable

Whether you are a first-time homeowner or you have been in your home for decades, your home appliances are under real stress every day. Today’s appliances are more efficient and feature-rich than those of previous generations, but those improvements do not necessarily translate into longer appliance lifespans. While regular home maintenance can help extend the life of your appliances, home appliance repairs are ultimately inevitable.

That persistent question: what if one of my appliances breaks? is exactly why having the right coverage matters.

Consider the reasons why you have homeowners insurance: You carry it because weather events, theft, and structural damage are unpredictable. No matter where you live, unexpected damage can happen, and having homeowners insurance lets you move forward without fear. A home warranty works the same way for your covered appliances and systems.

Having Our Home Appliance Repair Protection Plan

Just as you rely on homeowners insurance for structural protection, you also need reliable home warranty coverage providing home appliance repair protection for your budget when covered items unexpectedly fail.

Here are some ways these two types of plans work both similarly and differently, and why you need both for the best home protection:

Appliance Repair Process

When you use your homeowners insurance, you make a claim with your provider. When you use your home warranty for a covered appliance repair, you make a service request. First American provides a streamlined service request process, which means you can typically get a covered item fixed in four steps:

1. When an appliance covered by your home warranty breaks, you can call 888.458.1738 or sign in to your online account any time, day or night, to place your request.
2. First American assigns a technician, who will call you to schedule an appointment.
3. At the appointment, the technician will diagnose the problem and report the findings to you and First American.
4. If the problem can be fixed, the technician often can repair the item that day.

Sometimes, a part may be needed to complete the service. If a part is needed, we will order it and do our best to procure it as quickly as possible. Once the technician has received the part, he or she will schedule an appointment with you to complete the repair.

Appliance Repair Service Cost

Knowing how much it will cost to fix a broken appliance may be where home warranty plans differ from homeowners insurance because the latter may include a deductible that you have to meet before a claim is paid. The cost to repair home warranty-covered appliances may often only be a service fee each time you request a new service. However, home warranties are not a catch-all service, and all providers have caps and limits that may occasionally leave homeowners with some out-of-pocket expenses.

First American is upfront with our customers about the protection we offer in our contracts, and reviewing yours helps you understand your plan’s limits and exclusions.

Appliance Repair Protection

In certain cases, having a home warranty and homeowners insurance gives you two solutions for fixing one problem. For example, if your dishwasher leaks and causes water damage to your kitchen floor, your home warranty takes care of your dishwasher repair or replacement, and your homeowners insurance can cover the floor repair. Having both means you can confidently address the full scope of these types of issues.

Which Home Appliances Does First American Protect?

You likely run the dishwasher daily. You probably cook meals on your stove or in your oven most nights of the week. Your water heater gets tested at least once a day, and your refrigerator always runs. We know how much you rely on your appliances, and when one of them needs repairs, it can throw many other aspects of your life into disarray.

Here are some of the appliances that a First American home warranty can cover.*

Kitchen Appliances

• Kitchen Refrigerator
• Oven Range & Cooktop
• Dishwasher
• Built-in Microwave
• Garbage Disposal
• Trash Compactor

Other Home Appliances

• Additional Refrigeration
• Clothes Washer
• Dryer
• Water Heater

There are other important advantages of our home warranty coverage, including:

• No home inspection reports or maintenance records when evaluating a service request.
• Unlimited service requests – no annual cap on the number of times you can request service.
• No age limit on your appliances.
• If we have to replace an appliance, we replace it with one of similar features, efficiency, and capacity.

Compare plans to easily find the right home warranty plan for the appliances you want to protect. And it's not just appliances — First American home warranty plans also cover many of the major systems in your home, including heating and cooling, plumbing, and electrical. See everything that's covered to make sure your whole home is protected.

Real-Life Examples of Home Warranty Coverage

Here are examples of how a home warranty can protect your budget when a covered appliance stops working:

• Your dishwasher suddenly starts leaking because the door seal has failed — First American can cover that.
• Your ten-year-old clothes washer stops spinning because the drive belts are worn out — First American can cover that.
• Your water heater, included with the home when you bought it, stops heating due to a mechanical failure — First American can cover that, too.

Having a home appliance warranty means problems like these don’t have to derail your budget.

A First American Home Warranty Protects Your Home Budget

Our home warranty helps protect your budget so that when the inevitable breakdown occurs, covered items can be repaired or replaced.

You know, stuff always breaks when you need it the most, and often, appliance breakdowns happen when you can least afford them. Take the worry out of dealing with a costly home appliance repair when you invest in a First American home warranty. Get a quote today.

Appliance Repair Cost FAQs

What appliances need the most repairs?

Washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, and dishwashers tend to need repairs more often because they are used heavily every day and have many moving parts. These are also among the appliances commonly covered by home warranty plans.

What’s the average lifespan of appliances?

The average lifespan of home appliances varies widely, ranging from 5 to 25 years, depending on the type of appliance, how it’s used, and how well it’s maintained.

Should I try to DIY appliance repairs?

If you have a home warranty, you should not make DIY repairs to covered appliances or systems – doing so will typically void your warranty. With a First American home warranty, if you have an issue with a covered item, simply make a service request online 24/7 or call us at 800.992.3400.

Does a home warranty cover home appliance repairs?

Yes. A First American home appliance warranty can cover the repair or replacement of many home appliances and home systems when they fail due to normal wear and use. Appliances can include your refrigerator, dishwasher, oven, washer, dryer, and more. Coverage applies to appliances and systems that were in good working order at the start of your contract. Please review your plan for specific coverage details, terms, and limitations.

Please review sample contract for specific coverage, terms and limitations.

*Cost data is from research and project costs reported by HomeGuide members. Items listed may be optional or not available on some home warranty plans; please review the sample contract for specific coverage, terms and limitations.