About ApplianceWatchDog

Search "best home warranty" and you'll find a strange consensus: page after page recommending the same companies, in nearly the same order. That order tracks affiliate payouts more closely than it tracks how often those companies actually pay claims. The claim denials, the per-item caps that turn a "covered" $1,400 refrigerator into a $500 check, the regulatory settlements — all of it lives in fine print, if it appears at all.

We built ApplianceWatchDog because a broken appliance is a bad moment to be sold to. You need one honest answer — fix it, replace it, or make a warranty pay for it — from someone with no reason to shade it.

• Our scoring formula is public. Five sub-scores, fixed weights, anchors you can read at /methodology. If you disagree with a rating, you can see exactly which number to argue with.
• We publish complaint counts. Every warranty review shows the company's BBB complaint volume and what those complaints say. When a regulator acts — like the $11.8M Arizona settlement Choice Home Warranty agreed to in February 2026 — we lead with it and pull the recommendation.
• Repair-first honesty. We're not a warranty site that tolerates repair content. Sometimes the right answer is a $40 drain pump and an afternoon, not a $600-a-year contract. Our repair-or-replace guide and cost data exist to keep you from overpaying anyone — including the companies that pay us.
• We disclose the bad news about our winners. Our #1 pick carries a BBB pattern-of-complaints note. It's in the review, above the fold.

When you click "Get a quote" or "Shop parts" and buy, we may earn a commission. That's the business, disclosed on every page. Two hard rules keep it honest: rankings are not for sale — no brand can pay to move up, appear, or make a negative fact disappear — and commissions are invisible to the editorial team while scoring. The proof is on the site: our highest-scoring brands aren't our highest-paying ones, and one of the industry's biggest payers is excluded from our list entirely. Full policy: /legal/affiliate-disclosure.

ApplianceWatchDog accepts no sponsored reviews, no paid placements, and no "reconsideration" meetings. Brands can flag factual errors through /contact — and we correct fast when they're right — but scores change only when the underlying data changes. Our editorial standards, fact-checking, and corrections process are documented at /legal/editorial-policy.

Scores and volatile figures (prices, fees, complaint counts, review scores) are re-verified quarterly, and every page carries an "as of" stamp — currently August 2026. Regulatory actions and major pricing changes trigger out-of-cycle updates. If a page looks stale, tell us.

Reviews are researched and written by a team spanning consumer-finance journalism, warranty-industry claims experience, and the appliance repair trade — meet them at /team.

Corrections, story tips, complaints about a company we rate (or about us): /contact. We read all of it, and complaint patterns from readers feed directly into quarterly re-scores.