Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

Mid-Year U.S. Auto Warranty Expenses: As if the pandemic wasn't enough of a challenge, the top U.S.-based automakers also now face a spike in recall costs that have driven up their warranty accruals dramatically, not only at the end of 2020 but also in the middle of 2021. The result is alarming warranty expense levels not seen before, but easy to spot in these charts.
September 16, 2021
HVAC & Appliance Warranty Report: Warranty costs and expense rates remained fairly stable for the HVAC manufacturers but were much less so for the appliance makers. But the real surprise is how late in the year the effects of the pandemic lockdowns seem to have been felt. Instead of a really bad second quarter, these companies saw a slow decline from one end of the year to the next.
April 22, 2021
Eighteenth Annual Product Warranty Report: When the pandemic began a year ago, shopping and work patterns changed radically, as many people found it hard to leave their homes or get to work. One would have expected a deep dive in warranty claims early on, but there was an even deeper drop in warranty accruals in the middle of the year, and a much higher makeup effort towards the end of the year.
March 25, 2021
Warranty Early Reporters: Because some companies end their fiscal years months before December 31, they also report their warranty expenses a bit sooner than most. So we've collected warranty expense data from 18 early reporters in 10 industries, representing about a third of the U.S. total.
February 4, 2021
Semiconductor Warranty Report: After a sudden jump in claims in 2018, warranty expense rates took a jump early last year. But by year's end, both the amount of money going towards warranty costs as well as the percent of sales it represented were back down to normal ranges. But warranty reserves haven't been this low since 2009.
May 21, 2020
Truck Industry Warranty Metrics: Claims are up but so are sales. Warranty reserve fund balances hit a new high at the end of 2019, and claims came close to doing so. And extended warranty sales continue to soar for most of the top on-highway and off-road truck, bus, industrial, construction, and farm equipment manufacturers.
March 19, 2020
Sixteenth Annual Product Warranty Report: Warranty costs are rising but sales are rising faster, meaning that the percentage of revenue consumed by warranty expenses remains at the low end of a decade-long decline. But can expense rates go even lower, or are we at the bottom now? A look at the totals and averages in 2018.
March 21, 2019
Early Look at Year-End Warranty Data: The Hewlett-Packard family of companies has filed their annual reports, as have a few others such as Deere and Navistar. While companies whose fiscal years end in December are just beginning to publish their warranty expense reports this week, many others with different fiscal years have already released the data.
February 14, 2019
Automotive OEM Warranty Report: The car manufacturers used to spend a greater share of their sales revenue on warranty work than the truck manufacturers did. But because of persistent cost-cutting, that is no longer the case. Last year, car manufacturers cut their expense rates to below-average levels, while the truck manufacturers were slightly above their long-term average at the end of 2017.
April 5, 2018
Cybersecurity Law: Legal experts say New York-registered service contract providers must take immediate action to comply with the state's new Cybersecurity Regulation before the looming deadline at the end of next month, and before the state's regulators levy heavy fines and penalties to send a message to the industry.
July 13, 2017
Service Contract Pricing: Appliances: While the typical appliance service contract costs roughly 14% to 16% of the price of the product it protects, there is an enormous amount of variation, depending on which administrator the retailer works with, how long the contract lasts, and whether the product is low end or top of the line.
February 9, 2017
Service Contract Pricing: Microwaves: Built like electronics but sold like an appliance, the microwave oven is a hybrid of two different product categories. And with service contracts costing almost 19% of the product's price on average, it also has one of the highest average costs of protection. And there's a big difference in the cost of protection plans for units priced at the high or the low end of the market.
February 2, 2017
Service Contract Pricing: Laptops: Laptop service contracts, as a percentage of the price of the product they protect, are more expensive at the low end of the market and less expensive at the high end. But there is a very wide variation between the top and the bottom. Laptop service contracts can cost anywhere between 4% and 91% of the price of the computer.
October 27, 2016
Service Contract Pricing: TVs: Although the average price of a TV service contract is 17% of the TV's price, there is a tremendous amount of variation. One administrator wants $30 to protect a $400 TV while another wants nearly 2/3rds the price of a high-end Sony set for a service plan.
October 6, 2016
Early Look at Annual Warranty Data: About half the big companies have now reported their year-end 2014 warranty expense data. And while little has changed for most of them, a few are now getting back to normal after seeing expense rates soar in 2013 and earlier last year.
February 19, 2015
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
Apple's Warranty Data: Warranty expenses began a swift climb at the end of 2009. But so did product sales, as the Mac and iPod gave way to the iPhone and iPad. And so, the share of total revenue spent on warranty didn't soar.
September 6, 2012
Assurant Expert Services: While repairs are a huge part of aftermarket services, so are installations, assemblies, configuration and preventative maintenance. Assurant Solutions is putting them all under a single umbrella that it can offer to its retail clients who can in turn sell service to their end user customers.
August 30, 2012
Power Equipment Warranty Report: While GE dominates the traditional end of the electrical power generation business, a whole group of new companies are jumping into the solar energy and electric car businesses. And some retailers that never had much to do with the gasoline engine are angling to become the new homes of the charging stations.
June 9, 2011
Vehicle Service Contract Administrators: As we conclude our VSC industry tour, we take a look at the financial strength ratings of the underwriters, the end user revenue of the administrators, and the myriad of links they have with each other, with auto dealers, and with the vehicle manufacturers.
September 9, 2010
Warranty Accruals per Vehicle: Multiple readers said something wasn't quite right with the warranty data in last week's newsletter. So this week we're diving into the deep end, probing to see if it's possible for both accruals and prices to fall as fast as the math says they are.
July 15, 2010
Expiring Warranty Companies: With Eagle Warranty closing its doors and US Fidelis halting its sales, the era of fast talk and easy money in vehicle service contract sales may be coming to an end. But they and others have left a giant mess that various attorneys general are only beginning to clean up.
January 7, 2010
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
Lifetime Warranties: Companies are free to define a lifetime any way they wish, but they have to be clear about their rules and their exclusions. Some issue the warranty to just the first owner of the product. Others qualify it with words such as reasonable or useful. And some high-tech companies spell out a policy under which the warranty's lifetime will end after sales cease and spare parts run out.
August 13, 2009
Warranty Conference: Economic turmoil is likely to take its toll on WCM 2009 attendance, but those who can make it to Orlando next week will see a series of how-to presentations by some of the biggest warranty providers in the world. Legal and regulatory issues are also on the agenda, and yes, there will be a quiz at the end.
March 5, 2009
Early Warranty Data: While only a few dozen of the hundreds of warranty reporting manufacturers have filed their year end 2008 financial reports so far, very few of these early filings reflect the turmoil one would expect, given the gloom of recent headlines. Are these early filers the exceptions? Or are things really not as bad as they seem?
January 29, 2009
Warranty Trends in 2008: With the filing of the last few financial reports of this cycle, it's time to look at warranty costs by industry. The big story in 2008 is how falling sales have made warranty claims less affordable for some companies. Warranty reserves peaked at the end of 2007, but claims are still rising. And for hard-hit sectors such as autos and homebuilding, the worst may still be ahead.
December 18, 2008
Green Warranties, Part Two: While product warranties are focused on repairs at the beginning of a product's life, anti-pollution efforts aim to reduce energy usage over the full life of a product while recycling efforts are focused on waste disposal at the end of a product's useful life.
May 21, 2008
NEW Acquires ServiceBench: One is a leading service plan administrator and call center operator. The other is a major network hub for warranty professionals. Together they can set the standard for warranty claims processing, customer care, extended warranty administration, service dispatch, and end-of-life recycling.
January 23, 2008
Automotive Warranties: Are claims soaring or falling? It depends how you slice the market. One way is to compare OEMs to their suppliers. Another is to group OEMs by the size of the vehicles they make. Either way, passenger car and light truck makers always seem to end up paying the most.
September 11, 2007
Institute of Warranty Chain Management: The time has come for companies in the warranty industry to write a check to fund the launch of warranty management training and certification services. If the fundraising goes well, individual memberships are set to follow by year's end.
June 26, 2007
CD & DVD Warranties: Only Sony is willing to back its optical disc products with multi-year warranties, and only its high end units benefit from the five-year coverage. Everyone else issues manufacturer's warranties of one year or less.
August 29, 2006
Computer & Electronics Warranties: As is the case in automotive, those with their brand names on the outside end up paying most of the warranty claims. But the computer OEMs don't pay out as much as some of the printer companies or the makers of high-end semiconductor production equipment.
May 2, 2006
Product Warranty Trends: Manufacturers seem to pack their end-of-year reports with as much warranty expense as they can find, creating a kind of step function in the quarterly data.
January 11, 2005
Warranty Intelligence Software: How does one launch a warranty software company that attracts John Deere and Whirlpool as early customers? And how does one attract the CIA as both an end user and an investor? Perhaps it takes equal parts skill, spunk, and luck.
May 11, 2004