It’s National Home Warranty Day! What’s that? You didn’t know home warranties had a day of national celebration? Whether you live in a townhome, cabin or villa, our homes are all filled with the same important systems and appliances that make our lives comfortable. National Home Warranty Day is an annual reminder that we need to protect these most important components of our homes, from the plumbing and heating to the refrigerator and oven.

If you’ve ever had the air conditioner go out in the middle of a sweltering summer day or a pipe burst and flood the basement, then you know how a major home repair is not only inconvenient, but also expensive. Most importantly, a home warranty protects your wallet from these often sudden and steep costs.

In case you didn’t know, Cinch Home Services has been in the business of providing home warranty coverage to homeowners like you for over 40 years. Since it’s National Home Warranty Day, let’s review what makes home warranties worth celebrating, along with the different plans available and their benefits. We know there’s one that’s perfect to keep both your family’s investment and budget safe from the unexpected.

What is a home warranty, and why should I have one?

A home warranty is an annual service agreement that provides coverage for the repair or replacement of systems and appliances when they malfunction or break down due to normal wear and tear. It can be easy to confuse a home warranty plan with your homeowners’ insurance coverage. However, homeowners’ insurance and home warranties, while both important, are very different things.

Your mortgage lender will require you to have homeowners’ insurance if you carry a balance on your home loan. This insurance coverage protects the lender — and you — in the event something catastrophic damages your home, such as a tornado, fire or flood. Home insurance claims usually involve items such as water damage, broken windows, torn roofs or theft from a break-in.

A home warranty, on the other hand, is a completely optional coverage plan that can help you repair or even replace appliances and systems in your home that you use on a daily basis. For instance, if a tree limb falls on your outdoor air conditioning unit, that would be a time to file a home insurance claim.

But if that air conditioning unit stops working due to a mechanical issue — a far more likely scenario — a home warranty plan would cover the cost for a technician to come out and repair it. You’ll only pay a service fee for the visit rather than the cost of the entire repair, often saving hundreds of dollars.

Simply put, while home insurance is there for the worst-case scenarios that might happen, a home warranty is there for the unexpected things that will definitely happen at some point, especially as your home’s systems and appliances age and require more maintenance.

What’s covered by a home warranty?

The beauty of a home warranty is that you’re able to select a plan that best fits your family’s needs and budget. Some plans even allow you to pay a lower annual cost by opting to pay a higher fee for service calls, similar to paying a higher deductible on your car insurance in order to reduce the annual premium.

Home warranty plans usually fall into two categories: appliances and built-in systems. Appliance plans offer great value and often have the lowest service fees and annual cost. These cover the most popular and hardest working machines in your home, including:

• Refrigerators
• Cooktops
• Ranges and range exhaust hoods
• Dishwashers
• Microwaves
• Clothes washers and dryers
• Trash compactors
• Wall ovens

What if your water heater goes kaput in the dead of winter or you notice your kitchen sink is leaking? Built-in systems plans go even further to cover repairs to your home’s major systems and their components, which are often the most inconvenient and expensive when they break down. These include:

• Air conditioning and heating (including ductwork)
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Water heaters
• Toilets
• Garbage disposals
• Garage door openers
• Smoke detectors
• Sump pumps

The great thing is that since a home warranty is a one-year service contract, you can adjust your coverage annually as your needs change.

What does Cinch offer that sets us apart?

At Cinch, we know how devastating an unexpected home repair can be to your day and your bank account. This is why we package our coverage options into three affordable home protection plans that are straightforward and easy for every homeowner to understand and put to use. We offer an appliance-only and a built-in systems-only plan, as well as our Complete Home protection plan, our most popular, which merges the best of both into one simple and comprehensive service agreement.

But we also know that a home warranty is about way more than just what’s covered. With Cinch, you’re getting award-winning customer service from people who want to get you back up and running as quickly as possible. When a covered appliance or system breaks down, you can call or request a service appointment online anytime, 24/7/365 — yes, even on holidays and weekends.

After 40 years in business, we’ve developed a large network of over 18,000 service professionals, so it’s quick and easy for us to match the best technician to your repair. And our customers love that every repair comes with a 180-day workmanship guarantee, which means they can trust that it will last.

So, have we convinced you that a home warranty is not only worth celebrating, but also something you should look into for your home and family? Whether it’s your first time shopping for coverage or you just want to review and adjust your current plan, there’s no better time to request a free quote from Cinch than today, on National Home Warranty Day! And don’t forget to stay in touch. Follow us on Facebook and sign up for our newsletter for even more information on how to keep your home protected from the unexpected