$708, $588 and $672. Those are the yearly prices we got this month from American Home Shield, Choice Home Warranty and First American, each with a service fee of $100 to $125 per call. It's been about a year and a half since we let our seller-paid plan lapse, and I wanted to check that decision against what actually happened.
What broke after we said no
Our first year in the Cape was covered by a First American plan the sellers paid for. We used it once, when the furnace inducer motor went in January 2025, and paid a $100 service fee. The renewal offer was $612 a year plus $100 per call. We declined and started a house fund instead: $150 a month from May 2025, raised to $250 a month last December. The fund pays for repairs, our regular budget pays for projects, and savings fills in when the fund comes up short.
Since then, here's what actually failed and what we paid:
- Running toilet, September 2025: a $19 fill valve.
- Water heater, November 2025: $1,780, installed by a local plumber two days after it started leaking.
- Garage door springs, December 2025: $285.
- Tub faucet, April 2026: $46 in stems and seats.
- Patio GFCI, June 2026: $40.
We also replaced the sump pump in March and the furnace in August, but neither had failed yet. A warranty pays when something breaks, not when you decide to get ahead of it, so those were always going to be on us. Had we renewed in April 2025, we'd have paid about $870 in premiums by now, plus a service fee for every call.
The water heater question
The water heater is the one that matters. The house fund had about $1,050 in it that week, and the other $730 came from our emergency fund. Would a plan have helped? Possibly, with some of it. After the service fee, the sample contract we read back then had limits and exclusions for things like code upgrades, permits and haul-away, and our install included a permit and an expansion tank. I don't know what a claim would have paid, and I'm not going to pretend I do. What I do know is that the plumber was in our basement on Friday because Gary knew who to call on Wednesday.
Three fresh quotes and the fine print
This month I read all three sample contracts at the kitchen table with a highlighter. On the plus side, they all sell the same real thing: one predictable yearly cost and one number to call when something stops working. For some households that's worth a lot, and I don't think anyone buying one is being foolish.
The tradeoffs were the ones we noticed a year and a half ago, in slightly different words: per-item coverage limits, exclusions for code upgrades and permits, a waiting period at the start, the company choosing the contractor and the company deciding whether to repair or replace. Our furnace job shows why those lines matter to us. Of the $7,100, $650 was a chimney liner, exactly the kind of code-driven add-on I'd expect to be a gray area. That's my reading of sample contracts, not a statement about how any company would handle a real claim. Only the actual contract and the company can answer that.
Who I'd tell yes
We're still saying no, mostly because our oldest big systems are now our newest. The water heater is from 2025, the furnace and sump pump are from 2026, and the 2011 AC is the next old thing in line. The house fund works as our safety stock for repairs, and most months it's enough, with savings behind it for the big ones.
If a friend asked, the people I'd tell yes to are the ones with several older appliances nearing the end at the same time, no repair cushion to absorb a $1,780 Friday, or a budget where a predictable monthly cost matters more than a lower average cost. For them, a plan can turn a bad week into a manageable one. I'd still tell them to read the sample contract before signing, the way we did, and to price out what their own oldest appliances would cost to replace.
The three quotes are in a folder on top of the fridge, which in our house is where paperwork goes once we've made a decision but aren't ready to throw anything away.
