Old Republic Home Protection Reviews

We spoke to Old Republic January 27 and I told the agent, but she said, “You just have to pay for another company out of pocket, and then we'll provide you up to $90 as a rebate.” I told her, “No, I've done homeowners insurance before, but for another company, and I know that basically there's a transfer. You can take the money that you gave them and give it to another company.” She said, “no, I can’t. We don't do that here.” The agent was terrible. I asked to speak to her supervisor, because I knew what I was talking about, and she hung up on me.

So, I called back, and I ended up getting her again, and she said, “I can't transfer you to a supervisor right now.” She sent me to billing instead then billing sent me back and I got another agent. I spoke to the supervisor, and the supervisor said I was absolutely right. They can just transfer it to a different company, and they handled it that way. The new company, Gladiator, was perfect, and I love them. Their tech came out and fixed washing machine. He said that when the first dude came, he pulled the washing machine by the lips of it, where we open the door. Instead of moving it side by side, he pulled it by that part, and that's why it wouldn't lock.

As far as the control panel, it was brand-new. We didn't need one. The hot water was off, and that's why we didn't get hot water. The service guy from the first company that came turned it off, and he never turned it back on. I asked him that, “Isn't this supposed to be twisted the other way?” because I could see it and he said, “No, that’s how it was. It's fine.” JJ’s Appliance was the worst, but I got my money back.

(2) The primary problem (a defective compressor) was replaced during this service call, however, the same contractor came out five weeks earlier to fix a blown fuse on the air handler of the same unit. During the first call, they identified that the system was leaking refrigerant and had leaked two pounds. When the same contractor came to replace the compressor on the second call the system had leaked 2 1/2 pounds of refrigerant. Although, the same contractor responded on both occasions they did not identify and fix the cause of the refrigerant leak. They said again that they would report it on their report to OHRP. Therefore, the leak is still not fixed and when the refrigerant leaks out I will be placing another (third) repair call to OHRP to deal with the loss of refrigerant and the unit leaking. The cause of the leak should have been found and fixed.

(3) It appears ORHP uses a revolving "next up" system with their service contractors. The problem with this method is that not all contractors are equal. In my area Filter Specialty whom OHRP sent out on previous HVAC issues is a better contractor. The homeowner should be allowed to select the contractor that responds based on previous experience if the contractor is an OHRP contractor.

(4) OHRP needs to do a better job of policing contractors for "non-covered" charges and protect the homeowner. The OHRP contractor attempted to charge me $220 for a connection fee plus $185 dollars for a maintenance fee. I told OHRP I will NOT pay the maintenance fee. I am calling my home warranty repair company to fix a problem not to establish a maintenance plan with a dispatched OHRP contractor. OHRP should not have asked me to pay this non covered charge and they should have told the contractor "NO" before speaking to me. I have had OHRP for over five years.

Overall, they have been a good company and fixed most of my issues. I am very satisfied with their warranty service over the last five years. They did not fix a power surge issue and explained to me power surges were not covered. Fair enough. I will continue to use OHRP and will continue to recommend them to military families moving into my city as I have found they are the best out of the current major home warranty companies. However, even good companies can make improvements.

Old Republic told us that the repairperson's recommendation was that the dishwasher was not repairable and needed a replacement. After a certain amount of time, they said, “Nope. Now, we're gonna come back and get the control board.” We were without a dishwasher for two months. When the warranty finally replaced it with a GE dishwasher, it was a bad delivery and got scratched on top. I reported that it was scratched and they were like, “Well, that's GE. Basically, it's out of our hands.” But nobody was rude.

For the heating, it was not thoroughly checked. My husband told the technician we have two units for the upstairs and downstairs. He got the heat going upstairs, and then came down for the downstairs unit. He said it was just the gas switch. He already left, but the downstairs unit still wasn’t working. So, he had to come back. It’s working and we're fine now.

Years ago, Old Republic gave us the money in lieu of a repair for a Moen faucet. They gave us $400 to spend. My husband is in a wheelchair, so we picked a faucet with motion sensor. It was a $385 faucet. The warranty said they’ll replace it with a standard faucet. We were a little confused as to why. Why wouldn't they replace it with what we have? They did give us $400, which is the same as replacing with a $400 faucet. But since then, we have an upgraded faucet. That was the only thing that we had to dispute.

Our price went up drastically. It went from $75 to $110. It jumped $35, and that's a big thing. We just spent about $440 on that because of the service calls, in addition to what we pay yearly.

I like to call and talk to a person to go over everything, because we've had some companies that we prefer didn't return. But almost everybody Old Republic have sent out has been good. Overall, I would recommend the company.

Seriously if they want to waste that much money, I’d rather receive the $800 and go get my own appliance and have it installed. With that amount I could have also replaced my oven and microwave on $800. I have no clue how much they paid for someone to install my ceiling fans because they had someone from Birmingham install them which is an hour away. But I’m afraid to ask after the microwave issue.

My last issue is there’s NO excuse having to wait on the phone for an hour or hour and a 1/2! It’s not just the customer but also the repairman. Seriously my repairman installed 2 ceiling fans and he was on hold for the entirety of the repair! That’s completely unprofessional and unacceptable. Either hire more phone personnel or have a way to email you or put you in line for a return phone call. NOBODY should ever have to be in hold that long hence you call every time!. When it comes to paying according to their outlaid statements I say they’re dependable. Just the other issues I think are a waste of money or poor with customer service.

One negative experience occurred when we faced water damage soon after buying our house. The former owners left us with water damage and leak coming out of the ceiling that they had identified as an HVAC leak. So we called Old Republic and said that we had an HVAC problem. When the first vendor who came out, it ended up not being an HVAC leak, but he was very abrupt. He was here for five minutes and said that it was a plumbing issue, not HVAC. Then he was out of here. He left us on a Saturday morning of a holiday weekend with a leaking pipe and no recourse. And he didn't speak a lot of English. So we had to call back to the office and didn't find out until after the holiday what the issue was. Then, Old Republic sent a plumbing guy out a few days later who resolved the situation adequately.

Overall, Old Republic has provided us with great peace of mind. The ease of getting repairs done when unexpected issues arise is invaluable, especially for an older home. Minus the one anomaly, the support and repair services have been exceptional. I appreciate that Old Republic is effortless to work with and responsive, ensuring skilled professionals handle the work.

Before, I did the phone calls to submit claims. It's just waiting on the phone. I thought, “I'll just use the automatic.” I can give enough details, and they call. It's easy. Within an hour, they informed me that they've assigned the person, gave me their phone number, and that I'd hear back. I love that. I have used that company for many years. I got the phone call from that company on that same day. It was my range, and it was not fixable. Old Republic contacted the company that came out and looked at it, contacted me the next day and said they could not locate the part that was needed. It's no longer available. At the same time, Old Republic sent me a message that they had found that the part was not available. “We will look in to verify that. And if not, we'll get ahold of you right away regarding a replacement.” They emailed me an offer, which is very nice. It was a good offer to replace it.

I sometimes forget I have Old Republic. I called someone to do a tune-up and they found out I was leaking Freon and gave me a quote. Then I remembered I have Old Republic. I'm not gonna pay someone to fix it when I have a home warranty program. So, I called them and the techs came. They looked at the air conditioning again and said the same thing that the other guy said. And these guys fixed it, all in one day, and I didn’t have to wait.