Choice Home Warranty vs American Home Shield: Pros, Cons, Pricing & More

You want a home warranty you can count on, right? One that services your state, where the technicians do what they say they’ll do and the company covers what they say they will. Sounds easy, right? Believe it or not, home warranties can be much more complicated than that. So it’s important that you do thorough research and read every character of your contract or you may be signing up for something you don’t want.

Visit AHS’s Website| Visit CHW’s Website

Let’s see how Choice Home Warranty (CHW) and American Home Shield (AHS) compare against one another in this showdown. Below are the points we compared for both companies.

	Choice Home Warranty	American Home Shield
Best Coverage
Best Plans
Nationwide Availability
Customer Service & Reputation
Overall Winner

Best Coverage

The table below shows what CHW and AHS both cover.

	Choice Home Warranty	American Home Shield
	Choice Home Warranty	American Home Shield
Refrigerator
Dishwasher
Air Conditioning
Heating
Ductwork
Clothes Washer & Dryer
Electrical
Plumbing
Range/Oven/Cooktop
Water Heater
Built-In Microwave
Garbage Disposal
Central Vacuum
Ceiling Fan
Well Pump
Pool/Spa Equipment
Free-Standing Ice Maker
Instant Hot-Cold Water Dispenser
Trash Compactor
Garage Door Opener
Smoke Detector
Built-In Food Processor
Doorbell
Septic Plumbing
Exhaust Fan
Plumbing Stoppage
Whirlpool Bathtub
Sump Pump
Second Refrigerator
Stand Alone Freezer
Septic System and Tank Pumping
Limited Roof Leak

As you can see, both companies cover the same amount of appliances and systems, so we have a tie for this category.

Winner (Tie): American Home Shield and Choice Home Warranty

Best Plans

Below are the packages offered by Choice Home Warranty and American Home Shield. Be sure to get a quote from both companies for accurate pricing. Choice Warranty requires a $60 trade service call fee per claim while AHS requires a service fee of $75, $100 or $125 (depending on what you choose).

Choice Home Warranty basically forces you to upgrade to their Total Plan because the “basic” appliances that most people have and wish to be insured against loss aren’t covered in the Basic Plan. For example, air conditioning systems, refrigerators and clothes washer and dryer aren’t covered in the Basic Plan. We consider those to be items most households have therefore you’d want them covered. Also, coverage does not begin until 30 days after enrollment.

American Home Shield covers a good variety of appliances and systems. They have specific plans if you wish to just insure just your appliances or systems. Also they offer a Combo plan which covers most major appliances and systems. You even have the option to build your own plan based on your specific needs and concerns.

Choice Home Warranty Plans

Below are the two packages offered by CHW.

	Basic Plan	Total Plan	Optional Coverage
Air Conditioning System
Heating System
Electrical System
Plumbing System
Plumbing Stoppage
Water Heater
Whirlpool Bathtub
Refrigerator
Oven/Range/Stove/Cooktop
Dishwasher
Built-In Microwave
Garbage Disposal
Clothes Washer & Dryer
Ductwork
Garage Door Opener
Ceiling & Exhaust Fans
Pool/Spa
Central Vacuum
Second Refrigerator
Well Pump
Limited Roof Leak
Stand Alone Freezer
Sump Pump
Setptic System
Septic Tank Pumping

American Home Shield Plans

AHS offers four plans total: Appliances, Systems, Build Your Own and Combo. The Combo Plan includes everything in both the Appliances and Systems plans.

Optional Add-Ons

All of these add-ons cost extra and are available for any plan.

• Pool/spa
• Well pump
• Septic plumbing

Winner: American Home Shield

Nationwide Availability

• American Home Shield is available in all states except Alaska.
• Choice Home Warranty is available in all states except Washington.

On a population basis, this means Choice Home Warranty is available to nearly 7 million more customers than AHS.

Winner: American Home Shield

Customer Service & Reputation

Choice Home Warranty has one of the worst reputations we have seen during our research of this category. On the BBB there is a write-up about government action that took place.  Choice Home Warranty had a complaint filed that they were getting customers to buy their home warranty, which was actually a service contract. In the end CHW paid the State $779,913.93 and had to revise its business practices and monitor its compliance for at least one year. Even though all of this was settled in July 2015, we are still hesitant to recommend them to anyone. We need more time to pass before we give Choice Home Warranty the Safe Smart Living approval. If you decide to work with them, please let us know your feedback as we’d love to hear from some real customers!

American Home Shield has a B rating on the BBB and over 25,000 filed complaints. This shows us that they have some areas to improve as well. Not too long ago they had an A+ rating and much fewer complaints. So their service has definitely gone down in recent years. Customers says they have excellent customer service or terrible customer service, so your experience may vary based on your location and technicians assigned to your project.

We’ve received reports that phone support times are fairly long when it comes to getting a claim approved as well. However, many home warranty companies have poor reputations so it’s not hard to be one of the best. We still consider AHS to be one of the “better choices” when it comes to choosing a home warranty. They have more than 40 years of experience and cover more than 1 million homeowners.

Winner: American Home Shield

Quality Of Technicians

Like all home warranty companies, the technicians vary based on your geographic location.

Local Companies Contract With Warranty Companies

Every warranty company has contracts with local experts in your area to perform the repair work when you initiate a claim. Sometimes there is more than one company contracted to work with them for your need so be sure to ask for the name of the company to do your own research of their reputation before you waste everyone’s time. If there is only one company, then let’s hope they do a great job because you are stuck with them during the life of your/their contract with the respective home warranty company.

Let’s face it: the technicians used most commonly for repairs in your town are what make or break a company. So we suggest talking with neighbors, checking online reviews and local home warranty users to see what coverage is like in your area.

For example, Alex and Michelle (members of the Safe Smart Living team) had AHS for a few years. At first it was very helpful because there were options for which local company could come when the garbage disposal broke or the heat stopped working. But, in the past year or so, the number of technician options dropped from two to three companies to one and that company proved to be less than awesome on several occasions. Technicians would continually fix an appliance instead of replacing it and these band-aids were becoming costly and time-consuming. This caused more hassle and wasted money than help which is why they chose to do away with their AHS warranty.

Do Your Homework BEFORE You Sign Up

This story is exactly why you need to do your homework to find out which local technicians the home warranty companies you are considering use before you sign on the dotted line. Find out who, research their reputation around town and then combine that with the other factors (coverage, price, etc.) to make your decision on which company to go with.

Appliance Hacks

Did you know that sometimes your appliances can do many more things than you know of? For example, your microwave can cook bacon, make you potato chips, clean your sponge and many more cool things. Check out these 10 microwave hacks below.

The Final Verdict

Overall Winner: American Home Shield

American Home Shield is the clear winner here in this showdown. In our opinion, they have better packages, are available to a greater portion of the population, and have better customer service than Choice Home Warranty. How does AHS fare vs the rest of the field? Find out in our best home warranty company showdown.