Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

European Automaker Warranty Expenses, Part 1: Six out of the seven top car manufacturers based in Europe have delivered their annual reports detailing their 2020 sales and warranty expenses. All saw sales declines but some actually increased their warranty expenses last year.
May 20, 2021
Aerospace Warranty Report: The big story was Boeing, which was caught in the perfect storm of rising expenses and falling sales. But across the industry, warranty claims and accruals were up after years of slow declines. And expense rates rose as well, though not as high as the levels they were at a decade ago.
April 23, 2020
Seventeenth Annual Product Warranty Report: For a variety of reasons, claims and accruals continue to grow in the vehicle sector and shrink in the electronics sector. But sales have grown faster, so the overall share of manufacturing revenue going towards warranty expenses remains below 1.5%. Warranty reserves, meanwhile, came close to setting a new high water mark late in 2019, after years of declines.
April 16, 2020
Product Warranty Sectors: By dividing all warranty-issuing companies into three groups -- vehicles, buildings, and electronics -- we can look at trends over time in terms of claims, accruals, reserves, and the percentage of sales revenue spent on warranty expenses. And we can also see that those expense rates have recently taken an upturn for some of them after years of declines.
January 23, 2020
Worldwide Aviation Warranty Expense Report: Warranty accruals were up last year, but warranty claims continued to fall. It's still too early for the cost of grounding of the 737 Max to show up in the data, but why are Boeing's warranty costs always much larger than Airbus? Meanwhile, Bombardier and Dassault saw significant spikes in their warranty expenses last year, while Gulfstream and Embraer saw slight declines.
October 10, 2019
Automotive OEM Warranty Report: There were some big declines in warranty costs last year, but it was more a case of getting back to normal after a bad 2014 filled with recalls. Still, the carmakers set a new low for their expense rates, and many of the heavy truck and construction equipment companies also continued to push warranty costs lower.
March 31, 2016
Telecom Equipment Warranty Report: As the old guard making landline phone equipment declines, the makers of data communication equipment and smartphones are accounting for an increasing share of the industry's warranty expenses. Still, there's been an overall decline in both the expense totals and the expense rates.
May 22, 2014
The End of Warranty Cost-Cutting? For ten straight years, manufacturers steadily reduced their warranty expense rates from over 1.8% of their sales revenue to under 1.3%. But in the eleventh year, the declines stopped coming. Could it be that there's no more left to cut? And have manufacturers instead begun to spend more on the customer experience?
March 20, 2014
Top 100 Warranty Providers: While most manufacturers keep cutting their warranty costs, some report massive spikes in their claims and accrual rates for the year ended in September. Others continue to recover from past spikes, with some of the largest declines of the year.
December 29, 2011
New Home Warranty Report: Though sales keep falling, claims are rising after several years of declines, and the accrual rates are holding steady. So is the worst over? Or are there homebuilders out there with bigger problems ahead of them?
May 19, 2011
New Home Warranties: One CEO recently said the worst of this cycle may be behind us. In terms of sales decreases and price declines, maybe so. But in terms of warranty costs, the worst is right now, as builders have less cash to pay for warranty work on units they sold at the end of the boom years. And then there's the question of how costly the defective Chinese drywall will turn out to be to replace.
September 24, 2009
Computer Industry Warranties: For most of the major players, sales declines caused relative warranty costs to increase. Turmoil in other industries caused a major PC maker to become the biggest warranty provider in the U.S. And for the lucky few, sales rose and warranty costs fell, despite a tough market full of customers still reluctant to spend.
September 17, 2009
Automotive Warranties: With GM now government-owned and several mobile home makers trapped in bankruptcy, industry-wide warranty statistics are losing their meaning. And thanks to the distortions caused by massive sales declines this year, claims rates have also lost much of their relevance during this recession. But among at least the well-run warranty providers, accrual rates have remained proportional to sales rates and quality levels.
September 10, 2009
Appliance & Building Material Warranties: The economic downturn that started with the homebuilders is showing its effects on the makers of appliances, fixtures, tools, furniture and building materials. But some segments haven't seen very big recent declines in warranty expenses, and some companies have actually seen their warranty costs rise.
April 16, 2009
Computer Warranty Trends: While other industries are seeing claim rates rise and accrual rates fall, warranty providers in the computer industry are seeing claims rise slightly and accruals rise a lot. And it's not so easy to blame those changes on sales declines, or to link them with quality increases.
March 26, 2009
Circuit City's Extended Warranties: Are the financial losses and sales declines self-inflicted? Or is this the bleeding edge of an industry downturn that will eventually strip other retailers of their profitability? Circuit City blames both.
January 16, 2008
Computer & Peripheral Warranties: At midyear, it looks like many of the major brand names continue to cut their warranty expenses, as do many of their suppliers. But soon Dell will restate its warranty accruals and that could erase the declines completely. Or will it add to them?
September 18, 2007
Top 50 Warranty Providers: While 20 saw declines in the percentage of revenue spent on warranty claims, all but 12 paid out more claims in dollars during the first half of 2005. Rising product sales made the difference.
August 30, 2005