Over the past two months, we have explored the extended warranties covering a variety of home appliances offered by online retailers. We gathered data on 1,719 unique appliance extended warranties, covering six appliance types: washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, ranges, and microwaves.

In those six newsletters, we catalogued the prices of home appliances and the service contracts that protect them, sold by 32 different online retailers. That list includes 10 retailers selling plans provided by Allstate, four that use Assurant, four that use Domestic & General USA, two that use Asurion, and two that use OnPoint Warranty Solutions. The remaining 10 retailers were local retailers furnishing their own homegrown extended warranty programs and local repair networks.

Overall, the least expensive appliance protection plan we found was a $3 three-year Wayfair Protection Plan, provided by Allstate, which protected an $80 microwave. This plan cost 4% of the total appliance price.

The most expensive appliance protection plans we found were two $2,250 five-year Extended Warranty with AWS plans from Electronic Express, which protected a $10,000 side-by-side refrigerator, and a $9,299 gas range. The refrigerator extended warranty cost 22% of the appliance price, and the range extended warranty cost 24% of the appliance price.

Service Contract Administrators, Obligors, and Underwriters

Allstate was the most common extended warranty provider we found in this survey of appliance protection plans sold by online retailers. Allstate sells plans using obligor CE Care Plan Corp., administrator SquareTrade, Inc., and underwriter Allstate Insurance Company.

Allstate Protection Plans were sold by: AJ Madison, Appliance Village [MN], Big George's Home Appliance Mart [MI], Famous Tate Appliance & Bedding Centers [FL], Gerhard's Appliances [PA], Home Depot, Menards, Nebraska Furniture Mart [NE], Walmart, and Wayfair. The plans sold by Nebraska Furniture Mart "cover accidents," while the rest do not include language covering normal wear and tear.

Assurant provides the plans sold by: Best Buy, GE Appliances, Lowe's, and Samsung, using obligor and administrator Federal Warranty Service Corp., and underwriter American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida. The plans sold by Lowe's cover "normal wear and tear"; that language is directly from the Lowe's website.

Best Buy switched its Geek Squad plans from AIG to Assurant on August 12, 2025, a major change from last year's electronics edition of the "Service Contract Pricing" series. On December 8, 2025, all plans sold prior to August also switched over to Assurant.

Domestic & General USA provides the protection plans sold by Whirlpool and its subsidiary brands, including Maytag, KitchenAid, and Amana. These plans use obligor and administrator Domestic & General USA Services LLC, and underwriter Technology Insurance Company, Inc. These plans all started after the expiry of the manufacturer's warranty.

Asurion provides the plans sold by Amazon and LG, using obligor Asurion Service Plans, Inc., administrator Asurion Services, LLC, and underwriter Continental Casualty Company.

OnPoint Warranty provides the plans sold by Electrolux and its subsidiary brand Frigidaire, although Electrolux handles its own extended warranty administration. These plans use obligor OnPoint Warranty Solutions LLC, administrators Electrolux Home Products, Inc. and/or Electrolux Warranty Corp., and underwriter Universal Underwriters Insurance Company.

BrandsMart USA, based in Florida, sells ProtectAll Premium Protection Plans, provided by obligor First Shield Consumer Service Corporation, administrator ProtectALL USA, LLC, and underwriter Arch Insurance Company. This is another change from last year's electronics service contract pricing series, in which we found BrandsMart selling plans provided by Allstate.

Orville's Home Appliances, located in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, sells plans provided by obligor 4warranty Corporation, administrator New Leaf Service Contracts, LLC, and underwriter Lyndon Southern Insurance Company.

ABC Warehouse [MI], Abt Electronics [IL], Big Sandy Superstore [KY], Electronic Express [TN], Jetson TV & Appliance [FL], P.C. Richard & Son [NY], RC Willey Home Furnishings [UT], and Warners' Stellian [MN] all have homegrown extended warranty programs, with their own repair network of service technicians. Each retailer serves as its own administrator and obligor.

Technically speaking, Electronic Express uses local company Alliance Warranty Solutions as its obligor, and Warners' Stellian uses local company Ironclad Home Services, LLC as its administrator and obligor.

Overall, we found that homegrown warranty programs and local repair networks were far more common for appliances, compared to electronics. For example, Abt Electronics only offers its local protection plans for appliances, while it sells Allstate plans for electronics. We found three regional retailers providing their own electronics extended warranties, while we found eight regional retailers providing their own appliance extended warranties.

Appliance Service Contracts

At each online retailer, we shopped for washing machines, electric dryers, refrigerators, built-in dishwashers, gas and induction ranges, and microwaves, with the exception that we ceased collecting data from small regional retailers selling Allstate plans. We did not collect data for any appliances intended for commercial use, nor for any used or open-box appliances.

In total, we gathered data on 1,719 different home appliance extended warranties. These service contracts ranged in length from one to eight years. As shown in Figure 1, three- and five-year extended warranties were the most common.

Five-year appliance extended warranties were the most common, followed closely by three-year plans. One-, two-, and four-year plans were less common. We only found seven-year service contracts sold by one retailer, Samsung. The only eight-year plans we found were sold by P.C. Richard & Son.

We found appliances ranging in price from $59 to $17,999, and corresponding extended warranties priced $3 to $2,250.

When we divided the price of the service contract by the price of the appliance it protected, we found a wide range of percentage ratios.

At the low extreme, we found a $10 two-year ABC Warranty Plus plan from ABC Warehouse, which cost 0.5% of the $1,899 microwave it protected. And at the high extreme, we found a $210 five-year Ironclad Product Protection from Warners' Stellian, which cost 150% of the $140 microwave it protected. The microwave extended warranties strongly populated the high and low extremes of our data, although only comprising 12% of our total data points.

Plan Coverage

Many of the one- and two-year extended warranties ran concurrently to the limited warranty, usually offering enhancements outside of the scope of the manufacturer's warranty, including damage caused by "normal wear and tear," and access to a regional in-home appliance repair network.

A minority of the plans began after the expiry of the manufacturer's warranty. The retailers selling these "warranty extension" plans typically were the online shops of the appliance OEMs themselves.

Figure 2 shows the start date of all 1,719 appliance extended warranties included in our survey.

334, or 19%, of the appliance extended warranties started after the limited warranty expired. Typically, we found that for the retailers selling "warranty extension" plans, the manufacturer's warranty was administrated by the same company providing the extended warranty. We found these plans sold by: Amana, Frigidaire, GE Appliances, KitchenAid, LG, Maytag, and Whirlpool.

In contrast, 1,385, or 81%, of the appliance extended warranties started at the date of purchase.

We will note that some of the online retailers selling plans starting at the date of purchase used a bit of tricky language. Lowe's notes that its protection plans include "parts and labor coverage after the manufacturer's warranty ends, even for normal wear and tear." Although that coverage only starts after the limited warranty expires, the plan itself starts at day one, with other benefits kicking in immediately, such as "50% reimbursement of the cost of eligible performance and care items," $300 food loss reimbursement, a $50 credit if the repair takes longer than seven days, and a 15% credit towards appliance upgrade.

Average Price of Protection

We took 1,719 appliance/ plan pairs, divided them into six sub-groups based on the length of coverage, and took and average for each. These results are charted in Figure 3.

As one might expect, the short-term service contracts cost the lowest ratio of the appliance price, while the seven- and eight-year contracts were priced at the highest percentage ratio. The overall average ratio between extended warranty price and appliance price was 14%, covering all six appliance categories.

Overall, the three- and four-year extended warranties were close to average, while the one- and two-year plans were lower than average, and the seven- and eight-year plans were far higher than average.

We found one three-year extended warranty that cost the same amount as the appliance it protected, one seven-year extended warranty that cost slightly more than the appliance, and two five-year extended warranties that cost much more than the appliance did.

Ultimately, we're not convinced by the pricing model for the seven- and eight-year extended warranties. We only found one online retailer offering seven-year service contracts, and one selling eight-year service contracts; there's a reason the other 30 online retailers decided it was not worth it to sell extended warranties longer than five years.

However, we will acknowledge that we found an eight-year extended warranty that cost just 6% of the total appliance price. Perhaps, these lengthy appliance service contracts only make sense to protect expensive, high-end appliances. Certainly, for a $100 microwave, it does not make sense to pay $150 for an extended warranty protecting it for over a decade.

Average Price per Product

Figure 4 shows the average percentage ratio between the extended warranty price and product price for each appliance type.

The eight extended warranties that cost the highest proportion of the appliance price were all inexpensive microwaves. Thus, it is unsurprising that the average microwave extended warranty cost the highest ratio of the appliance price.

Range protection plans were generally the least expensive, averaging 10.5% of the appliance price. Refrigerator extended warranties cost, on average, 11.3% of the appliance price, a close second at the low range. It's no coincidence that these two are typically the largest, and the most expensive, home appliances.

On the other hand, we found that dishwasher and microwave extended warranties tended to cost the largest proportion of the appliance price. Dishwasher extended warranties cost an average of 15.8% of the appliance price, and microwave extended warranties cost an average of 19.1% of the appliance price. Again, we see that these are the smallest and least expensive appliances.

Overall, we found that extended warranties protecting the more expensive appliances generally cost a lower proportion of the total appliance price. This makes sense, considering the appliance price is in the denominator of the formula used to calculate this percentage. However, it is also significant, because it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the complex actuarial models used to calculate the extended warranty prices.

These models come under the most stress when there is a lack of dynamic pricing, such that extended warranties cost the same for a whole appliance type, whether the model itself costs $100 or $5,000. If a two-year microwave extended warranty always costs $150, that's a very different value proposition for a $100 countertop microwave, versus a $3,000 built-in microwave.

Administrator Averages

To create our final chart, we organized the product/ protection plan pairs by the name of the administrator. We marked each plan as either above or below average, based on the average for each appliance type, as shown in Figure 4.

For example, a microwave extended warranty that cost 15% of the appliance price would be considered below average, while a range extended warranty that cost 15% of the appliance price would be considered above average.

Figure 5 depicts the averages for all of the extended warranty administrators in our survey, including the smaller regional retailers running their own extended warranty networks.

The most expensive group was Ironclad, which provides the protection plans sold by Warners' Stellian. Ironclad had 79% of extended warranties cost above average, and just 21% of extended warranties below average.

The least expensive group was Jetson TV & Appliance. 87% of the Jetson plans were below the industry average, while just 13% were above average.

It's very intriguing that we found self-administrating regional retailers at both extremes of the spectrum. Jetson and RC Willey had extended warranties with below average prices, while ABC Warehouse and Ironclad (Warners' Stellian) had extended warranties with above average prices.

These results show that the large, nationwide extended warranty groups, including Allstate, Assurant, and Asurion, stay very competitive with each other in pricing their service contracts, all slightly below average.

Interestingly, we found a group of regional retailers, along with smaller TPAs, such as OnPoint, New Leaf, and ProtectALL, right at the middle of the pack.