This is my horrible and worst home warranty experience that I would love to share. I purchase home warranty from Colonial over the phone and they claimed that their service is good and timely. I bought the warranty in Dec. 15th 2010 and started the contract Jan 15, 2011. I recently have a stoppage issues on the second floor sink and made a claim request on 24th Jan 2011. The claim was issued to the plumbing contractor, Ana Roys, Royco Plumbing.

It wasn’t many tries (trust me, many calls and voice messages to the plumber and Colonial) that I got reply from the plumber to come over on 26th Jan 2010. After spending 5 mins upstairs, he claimed that he would need authorization from Colonial to do the job to clear the stoppage. I told him that I would need it to be fixed prior to 30th Jan because I am going out of town for 2.5 weeks. The plumber, Sergio claimed that he would call Colonial on 27th and should be able to get back to me on the same day. I am kind of septical, hence, I call the plumber on 27th, which of course, I did not get them… I immdiately call Colonial to check on the status, but Colonial claimed that the system is down and they could not check. I requested them to send urgent request for someone in charge to get back to me. I did the same on 28th, 29th, and 30th (prior to my departure). NO RESPONSE from anyone – no plumber, no Colonial. I felt that I am left hanging in mid air with no reply.

When I am in Singapore (yes, in Asia). I wrote to them on Contact Me.. for them to get back to me on the status on 2nd of Feb (which is 3rd Feb in US). They wrote 2 days later:

“The contractor informed Colonial that this was a main-line backup with no accessible ground level clean out. Per our terms, Colonial only covers main-line backups when there is an accessible ground level clean out. We did inform the contractor of this, we apologize for any inconvenience.”

Imagine how I feel, recieving this. It is not claimed and I paid my service call for $45 for 5min. No recommendation from Colonial or plumbers. I am really pissed. It sounds so scam. I bought home warranty to cover things happened in the home, and I repeatedly asked the sales rep. about the coverage. They claimed that plumbing is covered. Furthermore, the contractor should be able to tell me that it is not covered by the Colonial on the spot or call me in advance. No news from Colonial “authorized” contractors. No news from Colonial till I sent messages out. Ok, I think it is my fault that I did not read the fine print contract carefully… Comeon everyone, this is like the financial credit card, full of technical jagons and I don’t understand most of it. I trust customer service and think I am covered.

I tried message them again and their reply is of no use. No recommendation. Let me say no news from the plumbing contractors.

I tried calling Colonial service line and try to get some resolution. I was passed on to the supervisor call, Brian, requested detail examination for my line. This supervisor was rude and refused to help me in anything or trying to resolve my agony. I requested another plumber to come out to inspect, but instead of getting my original service call (if the result is the same), he insists that I have to foot all the service call charges, because I do not trust the “authorized” contractor that Colonial sent. It is not Colonial responsibility to get customer’s claim resolved at a specific time frame. That means, it is okay that they do not get back to me. I am already pissed by his “hard ball” comment and attitude by this time. Instead of helping, he only quote me on the contract stating that it is my fault of not reading the contracts and I cannot get out of it or cancel it because it is after 30 days. He then rudely hang up on me before I could have anything resolved. I tried calling the corporate office, but no one ever get back to me. As usual, no response.

Colonial Warranty does not have a very good customer service. If their supervisor is rude, and not willing to help their customer on resolving the issues. From the timeline perspective, the process took 2 weeks to get any response and it is on my part to chase after it.

Trust me the bad reviews that you see on this one is REAL… Think hard prior to investing your hard earn money in this company’s warranty. No one would even bother to come to you or response to you on time.

Times are too hard (financially) to play with people’s money…

I would like to have my contract cancelled and have full refund. It seems like I bought something that they ripped me off. I hope there will be similar legislation passed for home warranty like they did for the credit card to have their jargonic contract made clear to the consumer, so that we will not be scammed to commit on the contract.

I bought home warranty from Colonial Home Warranty about 2 months ago and now my AC unit broke down. I called into claim dept and was told to wait for a review. After 3 days, i haven't heard from them so i called into the claim dept again and was told they denied my claim due to not having prior maintenance record and would not allow me to speak to authorization department or personnel. When i first discussing a quote with a sales agent, he said i won't need any prior maintenance record since i just bought this house and now they denied me for this reason.
Since i'm only been to this new house for two months, the only record i have is the appraisal and walkthrough inspection signed off document.
I felt Colonial Home Warranty is tricking me to buy a policy and not honoring their promise. What's the purpose of buy a home warranty and getting denied after you paid for it and now they're not fullfiling their obligation on their end.
I'm sure there are more people like me facing this same situation and i hope they read all reviews related to Colonial Home Warranty prior to sign a contract with them. The company is trying to take money from homeowners and all they care is getting more contracts signed and collect the money. They're putting their reputation at risk. This business model won't last long.

Anyone has experienced with Colonial Home Warranty and has advise on how to get them to fix my AC unit, please let me know.