American Home Shield vs. Choice Home Warranty (2025)
Two of the biggest names in home warranties. We ran them head-to-head on price, coverage, and claim outcomes.
Verdict
What we liked
- ✓American Home Shield: Pre-existing condition coverage and unlimited refrigerant on AC repairs.
- ✓Side-by-side per-item caps for typical claims
- ✓All-in pricing across a year of two typical claims
Verdict
What could be better
- !Both providers update their sample contracts annually — re-check before signing
- !Service-fee math depends on how many claims you file in a typical year
Most homeowners narrow their warranty shopping list to two or three names. American Home Shield and Choice Home Warranty are on almost every list we see, so we ran them head-to-head on the metrics that actually matter once you file a claim.
The pricing comparison
American Home Shield starts at $64/month and runs up to about $92 for the top-tier plan. Choice Home Warranty runs $47–$68/month. On sticker price alone, Choice Home Warranty wins — but that's the wrong way to compare.
What matters is lifetime cost per filed claim, which is the monthly premium plus the service fee multiplied by the number of claims you actually file. Average is two claims per year. At those numbers:
- American Home Shield: roughly $968–$1404/year all-in
- Choice Home Warranty: roughly $734–$1016/year all-in
That changes the calculus.
Coverage where it matters
Pre-existing condition coverage and unlimited refrigerant on AC repairs.
Compare to Choice Home Warranty: Aggressive sticker pricing and a single, simple-to-understand premium plan.
This is where the choice usually gets made. If you own an older home with aging systems, the broader-coverage provider is worth paying up for. If you own a newer home and just want appliance protection, the cheaper plan is fine.
Claim experience
In our reader panel, American Home Shield carries a BBB rating of B (accredited) and Trustpilot of 3.9. Choice Home Warranty carries B- on BBB and 3.5 on Trustpilot.
The ratings tell you what to expect, not what you'll get. Both companies have happy customers and angry customers; the difference is the volume and pattern of complaints. American Home Shield pulls the better Trustpilot score, which we weight heavily because it's harder to game.
Where each one wins
American Home Shield is better for: Older homes with aging HVAC.
Choice Home Warranty is better for: Budget-conscious buyers.
If you're in between — say, a 1990s home with original HVAC but newer appliances — the answer depends on which system you most expect to fail in the next 36 months. We generally lean toward the provider with stronger systems coverage, because system failures are the four-figure events warranties were invented to absorb.
Read the contract first
Both providers update their sample contracts annually. Pull the current one before signing. Watch specifically for:
- Per-item caps (most exclusions are buried here)
- Pre-existing condition language
- "Improper installation" denial clauses
- Refrigerant cap on A/C work
- Workmanship guarantee length on contractor repairs
We've seen homeowners write a check for the same plan with two completely different price tags depending on the season and the salesperson. Online quote tools tend to be more reliable than phone quotes; call quotes are higher than online quotes about 70% of the time in our spot checks.
Bottom line
If we had to pick one for the typical homeowner reading this, American Home Shield is the safer bet. It costs a bit more per month for a meaningfully better claim experience, and across a five-year ownership window the math works out. But the right answer is genuinely home-specific — there's no universal winner in this category.
Reader Reactions
9 commentsGreat breakdown. The bit about reading the actual contract before signing — every homeowner needs to hear that.
Two stars max from us. Contractor was clearly the cheapest available, came back twice, still didn't fix the original issue.
Glad someone finally said the response time matters more than the sticker price. Spent two years with a cheaper plan and learned the hard way.
Hard disagree on the recommendation. Filed a claim in 2024 for our water heater and got the runaround for six weeks before they agreed to cover a fraction of it.
Two stars max from us. Contractor was clearly the cheapest available, came back twice, still didn't fix the original issue.
Would love a follow-up on regional contractor quality. Northeast experience seems wildly different from yours.
Their 'unlimited' refrigerant clause has fine print I didn't see until claim time. Ended up paying $380 out of pocket.
Mostly agree, but our experience with the contractor network in Phoenix was rougher than this review suggests. Two contractors no-showed before we got someone reliable.
Mostly agree, but our experience with the contractor network in Phoenix was rougher than this review suggests. Two contractors no-showed before we got someone reliable.
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