Complaint Review: Old Republic Home Protection - San Ramon California

DO NOT PAY A PENNY TO THESE SCAM ARTISTS!!! DEFINITELY DO NOT USE THEIR POOL WARRANTIES. 

THEIR CONTRACTS EXCLUDE ALL ITEMS THAT COST ANYTHING TO FIX.

After years of loyally recommending this company and using them for my rental properties due to their perceived honesty, I have now been exposed to the sobering reality of the fact that this "home warranty" company is indeed a SCAM. Just like many of the other "home warranty" companies out there Old Republic has exclusions for almost anything that would be costly to fix. You are much better off keeping your money in your bank account and paying for the repair yourself if and when one is needed.  Old Republic sells their pool warranties saying that it will apply to any above ground components to your pool. With that said, valves, seals and pipes are items that are likely to go bad on your pool and need replacing. I have a 35,000 gallon pool, and the reality is that for the $300 or more in premiums that you pay Old Republic each year, you could literally have every covered pipe, seal and valve replaced on your pool every year. With that said, save yourself the money and headache, and just pay a pool provider to come out and fix your pool if one of these items malfunctions.

On October 20, 2016 an above ground valve in my pool cracked and needed to be replaced. The crack was major and was flooding my back yard. Once my back yard flooded, water flowed down the street of my neighborhood.  I called Old Republic Home Warranty since their sales pitch at the time of the purchase seemed to suggest that they would cover an item like this. This was an above ground part of the pool and was a direct component needed for my pool to function. When the pool company came to the house however, they completely ignored the cracked valve that was flooding my yard and they instead replaced an unrelated seal. When I called Old Republic to discuss the matter, they played dumb and said that the leak was fixed. The leak was very obvious and could not be mistaken, but Old Republic maintained their fake naive position on the matter.

They finally offered to send the pool company back out. The pool company let me know that they were going to fix the issue, but that it would take a week to receive the part. When they received the part, it was not the correct part. Again they replaced a seal on another part of the pool equipment and not the huge, obvious leak. After weeks of Old Republic and the pool company playing games, and making my pool unusable (the pool pump could not be run with this leak), I called old republic again and clearly described the valve. GUESS WHAT, THAT VALVE IS NOT COVERED! Old Republic excluded the only valve that costs anything to repair. Since the broken distributes water to the cleaning system it was not going to be repaired. Unfortunately they did not tell me that when I called in 1 month and 1.5 weeks earlier to complete the service request.

They waited until the pool was completely unusable due to their delays. I brought this up with a manager Arturo x7956 and he agreed to have an exception made and sent another pool company out. The second pool company came out and said that they would not repair the above ground valve under the home warranty due to the same exclusion. I called Old Republic and referenced my previous conversation with manager Arturo today December 10 (1 month and 3 weeks after my first call), and they told me that they would not honor the terms of the conversation I had with the previous manager. I first spoke with a very rude supervisor named Desarae x 1316 who said they would not honor my discussion with Arturo and laughed at me about the matter. I then spoke with another supervisor named Jordan x1319 who confirmed that they would not be honoring my discussion with Arturo.

Spare yourself the time and money.  Keep that premium money in your bank account, and use half of it to have every pipe, valve and seal on your pool replaced every 2 years instead of giving it to these SCAM ARTISTS!!!