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Home Warranty Claims
An outline of the next steps of the claim process
Often, the description we get on the work order is pretty vague.
Feel free to email us a better description of what issues you are having, a picture or video of the problem/error code if applicable, and a picture of the model number sticker on the unit (for parts research).
Sometimes we can evaluate an issue enough if the problem seems obvious and can order parts prior to our initial visit. This way, we can try our best to get you taken care of with just having to schedule one trip out.
We cannot guarantee anything with this, but if you would like to make the effort we will see if we can pre-order parts for your situation. We will have to pay return shipping and possible restocking fees if the parts we order are not needed, so we will only order parts if your situation is obviously to the tech that reviews the email.
contact@tacticalappliance.com : Please include your address so we can match it with your work order. We will let your know if we are able to order parts.
Please visit our tips page prior to our visit. It might help with your appliance issues and help avoid having to pay a home warranty co-pay!
appliancetips.net
If you are able to solve your issues, please let us know as soon as possible if you need to cancel.
Checking the night before might save a warranty co-pay!
We recommend testing your appliance for the failure that you are having the night before our arrival. Sometimes there might be a minor hiccup in the performance of an appliance that might clear itself up on its own and when this happens the technician may arrive and everything might check good due to the issue resolving on its own, and at that point, since we fulfilled the warranty's service and made a trip to your property we would have to collect the warranty's service fee/co-pay. This is why we recommend to test that the failure is a consistent failure with the appliance.
Reminder: There is a process to go about with getting parts ordered and all repairs must be approved by your home warranty under the contract that you have agreed to with them. We are a third party vendor so we only report what we find to them and they make any and all decisions after this based on the contract you have with them. There is typically not an instant turn around on having your appliance repaired because of the process with getting authorization on claims, just like with must insurance type claims for anything. Repairs are usually completed withing 8 business days after you make a claim, but we want to be transparent that it will be likely that your appliance problem will not be resolved within 24 hours of making your claim.
Home warranties are nice as the co-pay is much lower than what a repair would cost, but the average home warranty claim from filing the claim to having your appliance up and going is roughly 4-8 business days as we must follow the claim process for your home warranty. A large part of the process is how long it takes to get authorization from your home warranty.
We will also most likely need to order the parts that your appliance needs. There are hundreds of models of appliances and thousands of parts for all of these appliances. There is no way that the tech will have every single part that might be needed on hand, but will have on hand the most common parts that we use on a monthly basis. However, the remaining thousands of possibly needed parts can be ordered and obtained in a few days. Our average time to be able to be back out after ordering parts is 5 business days - depending on which warehouse what is needed. Some are located across the country and this can add a couple of days to obtaining the part. We also have to wait for the warranty to authorize the claim. We do not get paid until around 30 days after the job is completed, so we do try and complete every job as soon as possible so that we can get reimbursed for our expenses for the job as soon as possible.
Currently, you are dealing with an appliance misbehaving, you have made a claim with your home warranty, and we have been assigned to this claim. We have completed many thousands of claims with home warranties and we are here to help get through the claim process as smooth as possible to get your appliance get up and going as as soon as possible.
Home warranty companies use third party vendors of different trades to provide services to their customers when something in their home is not performing as it should. As a third party, any repairs that we do or part orders that we make must be authorized by your home warranty first and there is a process that we must follow. Plainly, if we make a repair and it ends up not being authorized your home warranty will not pay us for the parts or time spent doing the repair. The tech will have a selection of parts on hand of the most common parts that we use on a monthly basis. We are still risking doing a job immediately while on site, but we will if it is a common enough part to try and get your appliance up and going as soon as possible, as we know that having something not working in the house really backs up the flow of household tasks and would add more burden on you. We do try our best to get every appliance we see up and going as soon as possible.
Steps to the claim process:
Step 1:
Getting out for the diagnosis to report back to your home warranty
We have a very structured routing structure for the techs so that they can cover as much ground as possible in a day with regards to fuel efficiency and not spending extra time in the day driving or back tracking when that time could be going towards helping someone else with their appliance and helping as many people per day as possible. We will set an appointment with you during a 4 hour time window, as the tech will have many jobs on any given day and we do not know exactly how long each individual job will take. The tech will call you when they are arriving at the previous job before you to be able to give you as much of an accurate heads up as possible and to make sure someone is home before they travel to the property. If they do not reach you on the phone they will try to send you a text. Please respond and confirm before they leave the job prior to you. For time management and fuel expense reasons, if your address is too far off route they will not attempt to make the trip. If you do not reply and your property is right on their route they will attempt to see if you are home. Please be advised, our company charges a missed appointment fee if either way an appointment is set and the tech cannot get a confirmation that someone is home via phone or if the tech arrives and no one answers the door. A missed appointment hurts the company and the tech by taking away a time slot that could have gone to another appointment so this is why we do take confirmed appointments seriously.
Step 2:
Arriving and collecting the claim co-pay/service fee
There is typically a fee that the home warranty charges you when you make a claim. Some home warranties may have you pay this fee directly to them prior to our arrival. Others will have their vendor collect it for them on site during the initial visit. With these situations, the tech will arrive and will need to firstly collect the home warranty's contractual co-pay/service call fee that you have with your home warranty as soon as they arrive. This amounts depends on your individual contract with them. We do not take checks. The tech can either swipe a card on site or take exact cash, as they are not given cash to make change.
Step 3:
Diagnosing the appliance to send the claim to your home warranty for approval
The technician will work on determining what components have failed on your appliance to cause it to not perform as designed. Some failures may be a simple fix and may not require parts being needed, which the tech can do on site. Other failures might need a common part that the tech uses often enough to keep on hand, which we will use to get you up and going on site. The majority of jobs will require parts that we simply do not use often enough to keep on hand and parts will need to be ordered. At this point we will also submit the claim to the home warranty via their online portal that we log into for approval before we order the parts. The technician will have typed up their notes on their phone with the application we use for scheduling and routing. Their notes will sync with what our office uses on the computer, so we will be able to see the tech's notes and what parts are needed for the appliance. We will use the notes and information from the tech to do the full research on the needed parts and submit the claim to your home warranty at the time we get to it in our queue of other tasks that day. It will not be submitted the instant the tech leaves your house, but it will most likely be submitted within 4 business hours of the tech leaving. Sometimes it also will depend on how involved the parts research is for the particular job.
Step 4:
Receiving authorization to proceed with the claim
Once the warranty processes and approves the claim we will be able to order the parts for your appliance. The timeframe on getting authorization depends on the warranty. The average time of completion after you make a claim is about 4-7 business days. The good thing about the home warranty is that your co-pay with them is much cheaper than the repair costs, but with most claims there will be a waiting period.
There will also be occasions where parts are no longer available and are discontinued or that the cost of repair is at a certain threshold of the cost of a new appliance, making it is not cost effective to repair the unit. In these situations the home warranty will be at a point where the only solution is to replace the unit. We currently do not sell or install appliances, so the home warranty would handle anything beyond this point. We do not know much of what happens at this point as we are not involved with the process anymore so you would need to ask your home warranty what comes next if the appliance becomes something that they are needing to replace.
Step 5:
Part installation
When the part order arrives we will reach out to you about setting an appointment to get back out and install the parts that were authorized for your appliance.
Home Warranty Claim Process
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