American Home Shield denies claim for ductwork after THREE estimates. Rip-off! Carroll Iowa
First of all, I'd like to say we live in the California desert where summer temperature regularly exceeds 100 degrees. We contacted AHS to check the A/C, because after running for 2 hours the temperature in the house went from 82 to 81 degrees, with the thermostat set to 71. We also have a special needs child with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis that has to be in a comfortable climate. AHS was told this on every call.
They sent out a tech within 2 days. The tech checked the unit, and then checked the ducting. He informed us the unit was very old, (20+ years), was extremely inefficient, and only working at 70% of its capacity, however it was working. He then informed us our ductwork was in such poor shape, even if we had a brand new unit, it would not cool the house because of the condition of the ducting. He stated the plenum has deteriorated, and the insulation surrounding the ducting is falling apart. He said our ducting needed to be replaced, and he would report that to AHS. After evaluating our ductwork and the unit, an estimate was sent to AHS to replace the unit $4000, and replace the ducting $3800.
After another week passed, we contacted AHS to find out what the status was on our claim. We were informed they were sending out another tech from another company to do a second opinion. Another few days go by, and another tech shows up. He too comes to the same conclusions. This information is sent to AHS with an estimate of replacing the unit $4000, and ductwork of $4200.
After calling everyday for four days, AHS again informed us they were sending out another company for a third opinion. We were starting to feel like this was going to go on and on until they got an answer that would get them out of this situation. That's exactly what happened.
The third tech came out and came to the same conclusion the previous techs did. I started to think this might work after all. No chance. The tech spent 20 minutes on the phone with AHS claims department, going over every microscopic detail. The tech came back inside, and told me what had happened. AHS asked him "is the duct work intact" he said "technically, yes, but it is not able to work because the duct work is falling apart from the inside out." They said, "So the insulation is bad?" He replied, "Yes". That was the end of the line.
AHS has a loophole in their contract. If you have flexible ducting, as we do, it consists of wire on the inside, insulation over the wire, then plastic covering over the insulation. In older homes, this is the type of ducting that was used. As I learned from the three tech's, the insulation is the only thing that ever fails. Their contract states insulation is not covered. They have therefore excluded every older home under their warranty.
Because we moved into the house only three months ago, we presumed everything would be in good working order. We are first time homeowners, and didn't know to have a home inspection. The appraisal stated the furnace/AC was in good working condition, (it wasn't, the furnace was repaired by AHS only weeks after we moved in). The tech's that came out to our house, said the unit was too small for the square footage of the home after the previous homeowner converted the garage into a great room. AHS won't put a larger unit in, only equivalent to what is there.
We are fighting the decision declining our claim. We are in the military, and went to the base JAG to have a letter written on our behalf. If they still deny our claim, we intend on taking them to small claims court, along with the real estate agent, and the previous owner. AHS will send out as many tech's as necessary until they get an answer that will get them out of the claim.
We feel, that they should state up-front, they don't cover "flexible ductwork" since the only thing that can go wrong is the insulation failure. If new ductwork comes with the insulation, that should be covered. It's not like you can do preventive maintenance on it to extend the life of the ducting. We didn't do anything wrong to cause it to go bad.
We had no information that would have led us to believe the ductwork was bad until we started noticing the plenum flying out of the vents when we tried to use the unit.
Carrie
Yermo, California
U.S.A.
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1 Updates & Rebuttals
Carrie
Yermo,California,
U.S.A.
GO TO YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT!!!
#2Author of original report
Fri, August 13, 2004
After AHS denied our claim, I contacted our agent, and threatened to take not only AHS to court, but her and the previous owner to court because we had only lived in our house for two months. Our agent agreed with us, and said she was going to call the senior sales rep for our area. (This is the person that gets the fat commission check for all the sales of the contracts our agent sells.)
When he got word about our situation, and our agent threatened to stop selling contracts. Then things started happening. Everyone from senior executives, to the legal department got involved. I was assigned a personal rep for the company, and AHS started contacting the two contractors. They drove the contractors CRAZY for nearly 2 weeks, trying to trick them into saying something that would get AHS off the hook. The contractors finally told them, "Look, we are professional's, we have given you our opinion. If you don't stop bothering us, we are going to start charging you by the hour for all the time we have spent going over this ****ing case!"
AHS got the message, because I was called and told the two pieces of ductwork that were in the worst shape would be replaced. "Only two?" I asked? That seems kind of redunant. The contractor agreed. He said, this isn't going to solve the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The ductwork needed replacing, but he took the contract anyway. For 2 1/2 hours of work, the contractor charged AHS $750.00. We turned on the A/C, it went from 78 to 76 degrees, then started climbing again. After running for nearly 6 hours, the temp in the house was fluctuating between 79 and 80 degrees.
The unit didn't turn off the entire time.
We turned it off again, plugged in the portable A/C we bought because of this situation, and called my AHS rep. She asked if we were sure the contractor was done. I was sure, she said she had to wait to talk to the contractor. I'm calling again today to get an update, but her words were, "Oh no, you're right back where we started huh"? I said "Yup, I think we are".
Also, be VERY careful about accepting ANY "compensation" for being inconvenienced. After we paid $650 for the portable A/C, I told them I wanted to be reimbursed for it. I was told to wait to see what the outcome of the situation would be, but for now, they would send me $100 for the time and how much we were inconvenienced. I said that would be fine for now. I did receive the check, but because things were still unresolved, I decided to just put the check in my "AHS Binder" and wait. I never opened the envelope. While going through my ever-growing binder, I opened the check because I wanted to see when it would void out, 90 or 120 days. It was 120 days. No problem. I turned the check over, and there was a stamp just below where you would endorse the check. It states:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RELEASE & SATISFACTION. BY ENDORSING THIS CHECK THE PAYEE HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGES PAYMENT AND SATISFACTION IN FULL OF PAYEE'S CLAIM FOR REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT AGAINST AMERICAN HOME SHIELD CORP. ("AHSC") AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES AND PAYEE HEREBY RELEASES AHSC AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES FROM ANY LIABILITY FOR CONTRACT BENEFITS WITH RESPECT TO SAID CLAIM.
This was supposed to be COMPENSATION for BEING INCONVENIENCED! Some compensation! Makes me wonder how many people have been "compensated" in this manner.
I'll update more when they decide what they are going to do now...