How to Lower Your AHS Bill

Does it feel like you’re paying too much for your home warranty? 

Maybe the bill has increased annually or monthly and how you want to know how to reduce your bill from American Home Shield. Thankfully there are steps you can take to reduce your monthly costs without sacrificing your monthly services. 

Check Your American Home Shield Bill

American Home Shield has a customer review rating of 2 out of 5 stars based on an average of 10,000 customer reviews according to the Better Business Bureau. 

• 22,000 complaints have been closed in the last 3 years
• Over 1,000 complaints had to do with billing and collection issues 
• Another 14,000 had to do with product or service problems.

As some customers put it, they were switched from monthly fees to annual payments without warning, resulting in a $600 bill instead of the expected $50 bill. Other customers were charged unnecessarily for services they didn’t have amounting to an extra $200 in their monthly bill. Some were promised a rebate after problems with their monthly bill, a rebate that never came.

FairShake has seen our own share of American Home Shield complaints. Given how easy it is for a mistake to happen, it’s up to you to check your monthly bill every month just to make sure that there isn’t a mistake, a charge that shouldn’t be there or a refund that is missing. If there is a mistake, contact American Home Shield customer service as your first step. 

Change Your Services

In order to reduce your bill, there are a few alternatives to cancellation.

1. Firstly, you can change your service cost from a monthly to an annual fee. You can also go in the reverse direction. With most American Home Shield services, the amount you would pay is the same per month, the only difference is whether you pay it any flat fee or over the course of the year. This can be a helpful change to your account depending on your financial situation.
2. Secondly, you can change your services so that you don’t have an expensive home security plan, but just the basic home security plan. American Home Shield offers a handful of plans such as:
   1. Shield Silver which handles heating and cooling, electric and plumbing systems
   2. Shield Gold which covers everything in the silver plan but with kitchen and laundry appliances
   3. Shield Platinum which handles the same as the gold plan but with A/C refrigerant refills, roof leak repairs, and code violations. 

The cost of your plans is based on the coverage area, the size of your home, any additional coverage you want, and the number of appliances you want covered. You can add coverage to a basic plan for something like your pool or your electronics. Adding al la carte coverage for specific add-ons can reduce your service home warranty plan while still protecting the most important things within your home.

Use American Home Shield Discounts

American Home Shield has an array of home warranty discounts. Some of them apply to new members while others apply to existing customers. They do have expirations, so they typically last for one year and then change at the start of the new year. As of the time of writing, for example, you can:

• Get a discount if you have multiple properties. If you use the same email address for multiple properties you can get $100 off your plan.
• If you refer a friend you receive a $25 gift card when they sign up for American Home Shield.
• As an existing member you can get discounts off air filters.
• Members of the National Association of Realtors can get 50% discounts off their properties.

Rebates and Rewards

From time to time American Home Shield will offer rebates and rewards such as free upgrades, free additional services under your home warranty, or discounts on existing warranty programs. These do change from time to time and you might find that over the years you have multiple reward opportunities for your warranty services.

If you’re still having trouble figuring out how to reduce your bill from American Home Shield, let us help. 

What if American Home Shield Owes you?

In some cases you might change your plans successfully, take advantage of a discount, or change your service but your next bill is still too high. If you are owed a refund by American Home Shield, you can start the process with American Home Shield. At FairShake, we can help you follow up with American Home Shield to resolve any outstanding billing issues.

Start an American Home Shield claim today…