Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

Warranty Expense Inflation: Prices rise and so does the cost of warranty. Over the past 17 years, prices in dollars have risen almost 40%. If we were to adjust warranty expenses for inflation, it makes the most recent claims and reserve data look a bit worse.
January 30, 2020
PCMI Signs AmTrust for Reinsurance Software: As AmTrust looks for ways to boost its core insurance underwriting business, making it easier for clients to see the financial metrics of their reinsurance investments becomes a priority. And PCMI's modular approach to reinsurance reporting software makes it easier for AmTrust to implement.
January 31, 2019
U.S. & German Auto Warranties: Car manufacturers based in Germany have the highest warranty expense rates in the industry. But that doesn't mean they make the worst cars and more than it suggests that China, the country with the lowest warranty expense rates, makes the best cars. Somewhere in the middle are the U.S. and Japan.
October 25, 2018
Warranty Adjustments: When a company finds that its actual warranty costs are above or below its predictions, it makes a change of estimate and adds or removes funds from its warranty reserve. While in general, removals are good and additions are bad, some companies seem to be correcting their estimates in every single quarter.
November 5, 2015
Aerospace & Appliance Warranties: From airplanes to air conditioners, each industry has a typical cost of warranty based on the product it makes and what kind of customer it attracts. Business-to-business products such as airplanes have lower expense rates than consumer-facing products such as home appliances.
February 6, 2014
Semiconductor Warranties: The companies that make the equipment that makes the semiconductors pay for more than half of the industry's warranty costs, even though their sales are less than a quarter of the total. But they've also done the most to cut their costs since 2003.
May 3, 2012
Homebuilders' Warranty Accruals: Rather than looking at warranty costs as a percentage of sales, would it be valid to calculate warranty costs per home? Using such a metric makes some homebuilders look very precise and consistent, while others look like they're just guessing how much to accrue per home.
April 23, 2009
DVD & Hard Drive Recorder Shopping: Recording television programs has never been easier, thanks to a new crop of DVD and hard disk recorders with capacities of two to 400 hours. But some carry only 90-day warranties, which makes service contracts even more appealing.
December 19, 2007
Warranty Claims vs. Accruals: Using a few key warranty metrics, it's becoming easier to tell when a given company is managing its claims and accruals responsibly. It's also becoming easier to tell when things run off the rails, even if a company makes no specific disclosures of a crisis.
November 8, 2006
Warranty Conference,
Part Eight: Behind the numbers used in warranty metrics, there's a lot that's left up to the discretion of each company. This makes comparisons somewhat unreliable without a standard set of definitions detailing what is and what isn't a warranty expense.
April 26, 2005
Warranty by Industry: While automotive warranties continue to account for half of all claims, a diverse mix of other industries makes up the balance, from air conditioning to airplanes. Manufacturers grouped by the types of products they make exhibited distinct personalities during the past year.
March 30, 2004