It's not all bad; it can vary. We have a different home warranty company who managed to find an obscure warranty that covered a $3.500 replacement on the inside coil of our air conditioning system. Our son, who also lives here, had his A/C go berserk. He called the warranty company, who sent a technician within a day, who found that the system was fine but that the thermostat had failed. (I'd never heard of a thermostat failing.) The technician replaced the thermostat, checked it, found it was now working correctly, smiled, and left. No additional charge, and his A/C now works perfectly. Granted it could change, but so far we have no complaints about the warranty company..

As P.T. Barnum once said...
 

All of these after market home & auto warranty companies are scams. A quick Internet search would have saved the O.P. from being duped but as the quote attributed to P.T. Barnum states, "There's a sucker born every minute".

How superior it must make you feel to type that.

Ripoff
 

Realtors must get a huge kickback for selling it. Been there, a huge ripoff.

I’ve never heard of self insured. Now I have another thing to investigate.

Self insured just means that you create you own fund to be used to maintain, repair, and replace things that break or wear out in your house. When something fails, you pay for it with your own money.

Interesting (and from where I sit) timely discussion.

We inherited an appliance repair plan; Broward Factory Service "Silver" plan, covering appliances (washer, dryer, range, fridge, disposal, etc.). All major appliances except A/C, but we have a deal with Munn's (service plan) and so far very happy with them. The premium with Broward Factory Service ($350 per year) isn't that great, but it is due this month and we were thinking of not renewing.

Anybody out there with wisdom on Broward that they'd like to share?

Most of those warranty policies are a money maker for them, that includes store and auto repair policies...

We had American Home Shield a year ago on our 25 year home. We made out like bandits. They replaced an extra large hot water heater valued at $2700 (cost us $60), and replace our heat pump /furnace at value of $8300 (cost us $1200). The reason for the high $1200 was something to do with replacing the old unit with new technology and the old had Freon (??) in it and it was a high disposable fee. The heat pump took 3 months to replace once all components were in their warehouse. I’ve had AHS on 4 houses and they’ve always done well. However, you have to stay on them (bug them), but they always come through. Better than paying $8300.

As for your problem, it’s not AMS problem that the part they need is not available and on back order. Are you going to be able to order the replacement unit and that part be in stock? Most likely you’ll have the same issues on your own they won’t be paying for any of it. As far as vacating your home…use fans or buy a small window air conditioner for one room to make one room reasonable. Our ancestors lived for many centuries without AC, since it was only invented 120 years ago. This issue won’t last forever.

I understand your frustration and anger because it’s warranted. However, I had a similar experience waiting for a car part to come in. Our insurance paid for a rental for 30 days but after that we had to rent the car out of pocket. We were calling and calling but they said the part was no where in the US, and they had no idea when it would come in. This sounds like a similar supply issue and perhaps they really do not have control over when the part will be available. Having said all that I think I would at least consult with another A/C company to see if the part is available.

A 20 year old HVAC unit should be replaced, not repaired.

I agree with everybody else on here. These home warranties are nothing but a joke and a scam for people to spend money. And for real estate agents to tell the potential buyers you have nothing to worry about your house is under warranty. I’m even done buying an extended warranty on cars. I spent thousands of dollars on warranties on cars just to have a $250 window fixed. And if your AC is 20 years old it sounds like you’ve got the life out of it anyways. But home warranty suck
For the amount of money people spend on the warranty you can usually have a fax cheaper than what you’ve spent on the warranty anyways.

Have had Broward for 19 years. Very dependable. Always on time and quick to fix any problem we’ve had. Money well spent. Saved us a lot of money over the years.

The OP should take the $450 offered by the warranty company, and cancel the warranty contract. Then, buy a new HVAC system to replace their 20 year old system.

According to Clark Howard, home warranty and other extended warranty companies only pay out about 8 percent of the money they collect in premiums for claims.