Cause of Death: Strangulation By "Home Warranty" Red Tape

Your story isn't far from the service contract enforcement complaints I've plowed through. I'd say house and vehicle plans are two sides of the same die. I've an impression the issuers readily cover the least likely things to go wrong, then stall and protest everything else.

It's been a long time now, but my Dad's auto mechanic at the dealer once came to us in their waiting room steamed and frustrated. He wanted to send us home -- sixteen miles away -- in a repaired car, but whatever stupid plan my Dad used was tying his hands. It wasn't a crippling problem, just something straightforward the guy could almost do blindfolded. This went in circles for a week before the mechanic wrung a compromise from the contract servicer.

Years later Dad had recovered from surgery in our state's largest hospital, ambulatory upon discharge but still in "fall risk" status. They weren't letting him go home with me in a private vehicle. I pulled a wrinkly card from his wallet and asked the nurse to use the hometown ambulance corps indicated. My father had paid voluntary annual dues to them for maybe thirty years and never asked for service. A half hour passed. Their dispatcher had refused to send a ride, the nurse told us in deep apology. The objection was not for distance or lack of drivers. The corps decided from fifty miles away that an ambulance was "not medically necessary", despite both the doctor and head nurse arguing the opposite. Two things happened next. First, the hospital whistled up its usual ambulance company, which imposed its usual fat co-pay. Second, I crumpled the local corps card and told my father to never donate to those bums again.

So yeah, prepaid service means no service, in my experience. What grills me is the way faux warranty advertising infantilizes the public. Many of the dire crises depicted amount to small and inexpensive repairs which are not really complex. Oh my, the toilet won't stop running! You got all of eight parts in the tank, none of them circuit boards, which haven't changed in decades. Made mine quiet in twenty minutes, including unwrapping the new rubber flap. Gasp! The dreaded "check engine" tally won't darken! You can obtain the OBD diagnostic code with the Trombone F1400, otherwise known as a large unwound paper clip. The fix can be something as stupid and cheap as replacing a five dollar fuel tank cap.

It's no accident that service contract marketing has multiplied as the cost of decent living spiked, wages have shrunk, the Medicare trust fund keeps getting raided, timidly regulated banks gamble themselves into the ground, and we keep hearing that on average a $400 emergency is enough to crater a family's savings. Yet again the insurance model cure is worse than the financial disease.

McClatchy's news service was the first to spell out what's between the lines of "technician researching pricing":
  "... an investigation revealed the company told DeSapio a necessary part for her air conditioning unit wasn’t available. Lawyers later learned the part was available, and the company was trying to order it cheaper from somewhere else."

Jesus, people, these are off-shelf parts for an A/C, not a flux capacitor for Doc Brown's DeLorean. How hard can this be, and why didn't your contracted repair shop already have preferred suppliers lined up?

Looks like the lawsuit is in that post-filing calm before the storm. I've found a similar HVAC breakdown story from Texas which started around two years ago, underlining that DeSapio's fight with FNHW was no fluke.

An Air Force veteran of Afghanistan obtained a Fidelity National contract the way most customers do, as a feature tossed in with his new home purchase. Half a year later, Paul Cancino began to burn through multiple repairman visits for the next quarter, never achieving a fully functional HVAC system. Per a local TV report, he found FNHW's reps "were difficult to reach and when tracked down, offered little in the way of a solution", noting that "every time it's an excuse about what they can't do for me".

In Summer 2021 "he was forced to temporarily move out of the condo ... after going without air conditioning for more than 50 days". Fildelity's brilliant response was a hundred dollar voucher to buy himself some electric fans. Cancino retorted that "fans don't work in San Antonio when it's 95 to 102 degrees outside". (I made the same argument to my late mother, who kept the living room like a wind tunnel every August.)

After a fourth repair visit Fidelity sent him a claim denial notice, "because the system exceeded the allowable capacity and was not designed for residential use". Shouldn't their crack(ed) repair vendor have made that finding on the first visit?

Much like the end of many other complaint stories I've seen, Cancino had meantime hired a crew off-network to replace the whole rig, costing him "five figures out of pocket". Fidelity tucked in a "good will gesture" check for a little under two grand with its farewell letter, which on principle Cancino wouldn't touch. Last I read, good will doesn't cool the house.

The homeowner later made one last appeal by phone to the insurer's better nature, telling a lady rep, "You know San Antonio is a military town. Think of all the active duty military veterans and retirees that live out here". She quipped: "Fidelity is not running a charity here". Since then, FNHW quit talking to Cancino, yet refused to release him from the remaining year of his contract.

Are they sure they don't run a charity? Anywhere else you send money without a return benefit, that's a donation. Cue the weepy ballad track! For less than $2.50 a day, less than your morning commute coffee, you can provide Range Rovers and vacation homes to harried and worn-down insurance executives, so they and their families can have the life they deserve. Won't you extend your generosity today?

. . . . . . . . . .

Home warranty headache: Veteran forced to pay out of pocket for new HVAC after lengthy dispute - KSAT-TV, San Antonio, TX, Feb 2022