What Does a Home Warranty Not Cover?

Home warranty plans safeguard your budget against repairing or replacing many home systems and appliances, but not all items in a home are covered. Here’s a list of the most common home warranty limitations:

Cosmetic damage
Damage from pests
Misuse
Types of damage covered by your homeowners insurance, including secondary damages
Items covered by a manufacturer’s warranty
Changes or modifications to your home’s structure needed to repair or replace covered systems and appliances or to install new equipment
Known or visible pre-existing conditions*
Acts of nature

What’s Not Covered by a Home Warranty for Appliances?

When it comes to appliances, what are the plan limitations for warranties? Do home warranties cover old appliances? Yes! If they are in safe, working order when coverage starts. The appliances covered by a home warranty can vary depending on the home warranty plan you have.

Here are a few examples of what a home warranty won’t cover for appliances:

Cosmetic damage: Most home warranty plans won’t cover cosmetic defects or damage, including scratches, dents, or chipped paint on your appliances.
Appliances still under manufacturer’s warranty: Home warranty plans don’t cover appliances that are still under the manufacturer’s warranty. However, the appliance is covered by the manufacturer instead of your home warranty.
Pre-existing conditions: If an appliance you own had a known issue or malfunction before the home warranty plan started, it might not be covered. Review the terms of your home warranty on pre-existing conditions to understand the details of your home warranty coverage limits.

It’s important to review the terms and conditions of your home warranty contract to better understand First American appliance coverage and all home warranty limitations.

What Do Home Warranties Not Cover for Systems?

Do home warranties cover pre-existing conditions on home systems? What does a home warranty not cover when it comes to common home systems like plumbing, HVAC, and electrical? Home warranties vary depending on your plan and location, but there are some common exclusions and limitations when it comes to home systems. Some examples of items not covered include:

Acts of nature: Home warranties typically don’t cover damage caused by natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, or other acts of nature.
Pest damage: Damage from termites, rodents, or other pests is usually not covered by home warranty plans. Some plans for home buyers offer coverage for removing pests, but not for repairing existing damage.
Solar electric systems: Home warranties don’t usually cover solar energy systems.
Propane systems: These systems are generally not covered under home warranty plans.
Pre-existing conditions: Home warranties don’t usually cover issues or problems with your home systems that existed before your coverage started and that could’ve been detected by a visual inspection.*

First American home warranty plans typically cover a wide range of home systems. Does a home warranty cover plumbing leaks? In most cases, yes! Does a home warranty cover a water heater? Yes, most home warranty plans typically cover water heaters, as they are considered essential home systems.

Additional home warranty coverage for home systems can include heating, ductwork, central air conditioning, garage door openers, attic, ceiling and exhaust fans, central vacuum systems, and electrical systems. Coverage for plumbing can include your plumbing system, plumbing stoppages, toilet tanks and bowls, garbage disposals, water heaters, circulating pumps, sump pumps, and pressure regulators.

What is Sometimes Covered by a Home Warranty?

Home warranty contracts can seem cut and dry on the surface, but once you investigate further, you’ll discover that there are appliances, systems, and types of breakdowns that can be covered in more comprehensive plans or added to your coverage as optional upgrades.

Here are some items and situations that aren’t commonly covered by a home warranty but aren’t subject to home warranty limitations when you customize your contract to fit your needs.

High-end appliances: Some plans have increased limits that allow you to cover luxury appliances.
Outdoor kitchens: Plans for home buyers can cover components of outdoor kitchens that are essential to their function.
Improper installations and code violations: This can be covered in some plans and as optional coverage in all real estate plans.
Additional plumbing coverage: Plans for home buyers offer an optional upgrade to extend coverage to pipes encased in concrete, external pipe leaks, and more.
Septic systems: Offered as an optional upgrade.
Water softeners and filtration systems: Offered as an optional upgrade.
Solar heating and cooling systems: Included in some plans, with limits.
Window AC units: Included in some plans.
Ice makers and wine fridges: Can be covered under optional additional refrigeration coverage.

Learning what additional coverage options are available can help you create a home warranty contract that meets the needs of you and your unique house.

What Does a Home Warranty Not Cover for Repairs, Modifications, and Changes?

Home warranties generally cover the repair or replacement of specific items or components in your home due to normal wear and tear. If a covered appliance breaks and can’t be repaired, your home warranty company will replace it with a unit with similar features and capabilities. However, home warranties do not cover modifications, changes, or alterations to structures.

For example, if you have an older water heater that fails and cannot be repaired, we’ll replace it. But new water heaters are far more energy efficient, and the extra insulation means they are considerably taller and wider than their older counterparts. There may also have been changes to local building codes since your older water heater was first installed. In both cases, this could mean changes are needed to the pipes that go in and out of the water heater. So, while the cost of the water heater replacement may be covered, the cost of modifying the structure, changing the pipes, or adding new equipment would not be covered.

Likewise, if your furnace or air conditioner needs to be replaced, a new energy-efficient unit may be a different size or have different power requirements, even though it provides the same output and capacity. This could mean electrical or structural modifications are needed to accommodate the new unit. In this case, a home warranty would cover the replacement air conditioner but only cover modifications to a few components that would maintain the compatibility and efficiency as determined by the manufacturer of the new unit.

Does a home warranty cover water damage? Home warranties typically don’t cover secondary damages when a system or appliance breaks. For example, if your dishwasher breaks, a First American home warranty plan would typically cover repairing or replacing the appliance (primary damage). If the broken dishwasher causes your kitchen to flood, however, any water damage is considered “secondary damage.” The water damage would fall under the coverage of your homeowners insurance.

Homeowners insurance protects the structure of your home (among other things), while home warranty protection covers many of the home appliances and systems you rely on every day. Learn more about the differences between a home warranty and homeowners insurance, and why it’s smart to have both.

Do Home Warranties Cover Home Repairs or Renovations?

Home warranty plans are designed to cover the repair or replacement of specific home systems and appliances due to normal wear and tear, but they’re not intended to cover home repairs and renovations for cosmetic improvements or upgrading existing systems and structures that are currently functional.

Discover What Your Home Warranty Covers

If you have a First American home warranty, you can sign into your online account to review your contract for coverages and limitations.

If you’re not yet covered by a home warranty, get a free quote now.

* Some plans that are purchased as part of a real estate transaction will protect you from unknown pre-existing conditions—if at the time the coverage begins the defect is not known or could not have been reasonably observed by looking at or operating the system or appliance.