How To Tell If A Warranty Provider Is Trustworthy
Imagine the following scenario:
You recently purchased a new vehicle and you’re looking to buy an extended warranty for it to help protect your investment. The dealership you bought the vehicle from offered you an extended warranty, but the price seemed really high and the pushy salesperson in the finance office rubbed you the wrong way.
So, you decide to look online for an extended automobile warranty instead. After a few minutes on Google, you discover a warranty policy that’s thousands of dollars more affordable than what the dealership was offering, and the coverage terms are better as well, but it’s being offered by a company that you’ve never heard of before.
The product seems too good to be true. How do you determine if what you’re seeing is the real deal, or all just smoke and mirrors?
To help make life easier for consumers, we’ve compiled this handy guide to help separate the contenders from the pretenders when it comes to warranty products by explaining what factors to look for.
They’re a licensed insurance company
Insurance is an important, far-reaching industry that affects the lives (and bank accounts) of millions of Canadians, which is why provincial and federal governments have enacted a wide array of legislation to regulate it. This is a huge benefit to consumers, who are protected from both fraudulent and careless companies.
When it comes to warranty products, buying them from licensed insurance companies is a huge advantage because they are bound by more laws than non-licensed companies are.
They’re backed by an A-rated insurance company
If one licensed insurance company is secure, two working in collaboration are even more secure! This is a common occurrence in the insurance world, especially when it comes to brokerages and new companies.
Within the insurance industry, you can also find credit rating agencies, which specialize in analyzing and reporting the reliability of insurance companies. AM Best is one of the most well-known of such organizations, and they issue ratings using letter scales, with “A” being good and “D” or “F” meaning bad.
If you discover a company you’ve never heard of, but they’re backed by an A-rated insurance company, that is a strong indicator of their credibility and security.
They offer a personal touch
Consumers need to be careful when shopping online. Unfortunately, dishonest individuals can start faceless companies, offer up little background information, take money from customers and then disappear without ever holding up their end of the bargain.
It’s always a good sign when companies offer a personal touch, whether on their website or when they communicate with you. If you know an employee’s name and have a way to reach them directly not only is your business safer, but you’re also more likely to receive excellent customer service once a customer-employee relationship has been built.
There are positive customer testimonials
The internet has made it wonderfully easy to share information, and that includes company feedback and customer experiences. Consumers now can protect and help one another by sharing their experiences online. If a company’s website lists positive testimonials written by previous or existing customers, that’s a great sign of its trustworthiness.
And when it comes to online reviews, keep an eye out for negative ones — or a lack thereof. Consumers who have negative experiences with warranty products are significantly more likely to leave reviews than consumers who never have any problems. An absence of negative reviews can say a lot about a company, even if the total number of reviews is low.
Their policies have cancellation clauses
Nothing exudes confidence in a warranty product quite like a company offering a cancellation clause. While some unscrupulous companies might want to lock down your money while later breaking promises about their product or service, offering consumers the option to cancel their policy (within predetermined terms that are fair to both parties, of course) is evidence that a company is credible and authentic.
The Obvi advantage
Obvi strives to go above and beyond to ensure that our customers are safe and satisfied with us.
As such, we’ve incorporated all of the above factors into our business: we’re a licensed insurance company, we’re backed by an A-rated insurance organization, we offer a personal touch, we share customer testimonials and we include cancellation clauses in our policies. But if all of that isn’t enough, we make ourselves easy to contact if you ever want to learn more about us.
Beyond an extended vehicle warranty, Obvi also offers new vehicle replacement insurance. Visit our website to find out more.