Choice Home Warranty Review and Pricing

What’s the Difference Between a Home Insurance Policy and a Home Warranty?

So there’s a lot of nuance here that we get into in our guide to the difference between homeowners insurance and home warranties, but the long and short of it is this: Homeowners insurance protects you against unexpected events, and a home warranty protects you against anticipated events.1

In other words, your homeowners insurance policy will protect you if your house is struck by lightning or if a tree falls through your garage. A home warranty, on the other hand, protects your home and its systems from inevitable breakdown. This means if your HVAC goes out or your hot water heater kicks the bucket, the repair should be covered under your warranty.

With that out of the way, let’s start by talking about Choice Home Warranty’s pros and cons:

So now that we know what a home warranty does and the strengths and weaknesses of Choice specifically, let’s take a look at what it covers.

What’s Covered by a Choice Home Warranty?

Like we said above, home warranties cover your home’s major appliances and systems, and in this sense, Choice doesn’t really deviate from other providers. One unique aspect, though, is that Choice offers two plans — Basic and Total — to help you customize your coverage. Here’s what that looks like:

Choice Home Warranty Coverages

Choice also offers additional optional coverage on systems and appliances that some homes may or may not have, including:

• Pools
• Spas
• Central vacuum
• Well pump
• Sump pump
• Septic system

Choice’s reasons for selecting home warranty protection

If you look at this chart, it seems like Choice Home Warranty has you covered from wall to wall, ceiling to basement. There are some things, though, that are excluded from your home warranty. Let’s take a look at those now.

What Isn’t Covered Under a Choice Home Warranty

So this isn’t specific to Choice, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention it. Home warranties aren’t going to cover a system or appliance that failed due to neglect or abuse.

Normal wear and tear and “old age” that causes eventual breakdown, sure, but if you decide you want a new washing machine and you throw bricks into the spin cycle, that’s going to be on you.

So now that you understand what a Choice home warranty is going to cover and what it won’t, we need to look at one critically important question: What is all this going to cost?

How Much Does Choice Home Warranty Cost?

So the unsatisfying answer to this is that it really depends. Just like homeowners insurance, home warranty quotes depend on a variety of factors like the type of dwelling you’re trying to cover, how many square feet it covers, and where it’s located. If you think about it, this makes sense. The cost to protect the systems in a condo will be a lot different from the cost of covering a large suburban home.

For a modest home in the Metro Atlanta area, a Total plan would cost $54.75 per month, or $627 for 13 months. If you don’t have a calculator handy, signing up for this term saves you $84.75. Not so bad.

Similarly, that same home would run only $46.83 per month under a Basic plan, or $532 for the 13-month option — a savings of $76.96.

Choice’s online quote tool is easy to use.

So overall, fairly reasonable. But before we give you our recommendation, let’s take a look at some of the factors that went into that decision.

What We Like About Choice Home Warranty

Affordability

One of the most important factors in deciding whether or not to purchase any home warranty is the price, and we found that Choice is pretty reasonable. The average home warranty will run between $300 and $6002 annually, so as you can see, even the Cadillac plan is still in the average range.

Also keep in mind, though, that if you need to have a technician come to your home to repair an appliance or system, you’re going to have to pay a fee to your warranty provider. In Choice’s case, though, that fee is also fairly reasonable, ranging from $75 to $125 depending on what needs to be done.

Response Times

Another great thing we noticed about Choice Home Warranty was that customers generally seemed relatively satisfied with how quickly the company responds to service calls — oftentimes, a technician will arrive in less than 48 hours. Pretty good when you consider decent freelance handymen can be more elusive than Bigfoot.

Workmanship Guarantee

The final benefit of a Choice home warranty we want to highlight is its 60-day workmanship guarantee and 90-day parts guarantee. Choice vets its technicians rigorously and really stands behind the work they do. If your repairs fail within these time frames, Choice Home Warranty will cover the cost of making it right.

Again, this is another area where Choice is a much better option than trying to get repairs done on your own. Unless you have a recommendation, it’s difficult to know if the person handling the work really knows what they’re doing.

So, that’s what we really liked about Choice Home Warranty, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss the drawbacks of choosing Choice.

What We Didn’t Like about Choice Home Warranty

Lack of Technician Choice

When we were going through customer reviews of Choice Home Warranty, one thing that kept popping up was that customers didn’t like the lack of decision-making power they had when it came to selecting the service provider actually performing their repairs. Take this with a grain of salt, though. Like we said above, Choice vets its techs very carefully, so you may not want to have your uncle’s friend’s cousin coming over to fix your plumbing.

Reputation Issues

Here’s where you might take a moment’s pause. Choice Home Warranty has been in legal hot water with the Arizona Attorney General for allegedly making false promises to consumers.3 Of course, we can’t speak to the veracity of the claims, but it’s worth considering before you sign on the dotted line.

Low Caps on Some Repairs

Just because you make a claim doesn’t mean that it’s going to be fully covered. Now that’s true with any home warranty company, but it’s worth pointing out here that in many cases, the cap on your Choice home warranty claim will be $1,500, with some going as low as $500. Just make sure you understand the limits to all of your protections before you agree to anything.

Now that we’ve looked at Choice’s coverages and discussed some of the finer and not-so-fine points, let’s get down to brass tacks. Is it worth it to purchase a Choice home warranty?

Should You Choose Choice?

Truth be told, we have our misgivings about home warranties in general. It’s great if they’re thrown in during the purchase of your home, but going out of your way to buy a policy doesn’t make sense for everyone, especially when you consider the monthly cost and the fee you’ll pay to have a technician visit your home.

That said, warranties do offer a stopgap of coverage between your homeowners insurance and, you know, everything that policy won’t protect. In that sense, we do understand that a robust home warranty feels like a security blanket to those who have them.

And if you’re looking for one of the best blankets out there, Choice is a great pick. It’s affordable, it covers almost everything in your home, and it stands behind the work its certified technicians do. While it might not be the most comprehensive warranty provider out there, there aren’t that many that can beat it.

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