Complaint Review: Allied Home Warranty - Houston Texas

Allied Home Warranty refused to honor its "One-page contract" and repair my plumbing problem. Why do they have a "One-page contract?" Because it is vague and allows them to refuse to honor repair requests at their discretion. Allied's affiliated contractor is NRG Home Services. NRG and Allied are owned by the same company. It even states so on their website. NRG put a temporary clamp on the leak and said Allied only covered three feet of pipe (you won't see that in the One-page contract). He said I needed more extensive repairs and they would not be covered by Allied, but that NRG would do them for $8,400 dollars and would even be so kind as to offer financing. The NRG employee also said Allied would condemn my plumbing and no longer cover any plumbing repairs in the future. My home was inspected by a licensed inspector less than two months ago and the plumbing passed inspection. Allied said repairing or replacing pipes is a "modification" and their contract doesn't cover modifications. So, replacing or repairing anything can be considered a modification and is therefore not covered if it would cost Allied too much money to fix. Allied Home Warranty has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. How do they get an A+ rating? They pay to be a member of the BBB and the BBB doesn't want to rate their members low. It hurts their business model. Business would not pay to be a BBB member if they got a low rating. Here is the response I got to my complaint with the BBB for Allied Home Warranty failing to make the repairs required by their contract. They didn't even send a copy of the complaint to Allied.

-"There are some complaints the BBB cannot process due to our by-laws and national guidelines. The BBB cannot intervene with issues regarding store or company policy. Please understand policies are not required to be posted in the stores or on receipts in the State of Texas. It is very important that consumers ask a lot of questions prior to purchasing a product or use a service to ensure that they understand the company's refund/return/exchange policy clearly.

You may wish to pursue your issue through the court system. The number for Small Claims Court information in Harris County is 713.755.5137.

The BBB has not notified the other party in question but will keep your letter on file. We sincerely hope you can find another way to resolve your dispute."-

It should be noted that Allied Home Warranty's "One-page contract" prohibits you from filing a lawsuit against them (small claims court). It requires you to go through arbitration instead.

From Allied Home Warranty wesbite:

-"We offer a One-page contract in simple language, with No Dollar Limits for each system and appliance. There's no fine print."

Nope, no fine print. Just vague language that lets them define any part of the contract in any manner that saves them money. There are No Dollar Limits because they just deny coverage if it costs them too much. Also notice how they capitalize No Dollar Limits. That is because they are using it as a legal term, not to mean there are actually no dollar limits. There is a reason other companies have multi-page contracts. It requires them to do cerstain things and gives the consumer legal protection.

-"...the owner of Allied is also the owner of NRG Home Services."

So they send out their own company to evaluate claims and make repairs. This is a clear conflict of interest and it is the reason insurance companies are prohibited from requiring you to use their repair people. That restriction doesn't apply to "warranty" companies.