Home warranties and vehicle service contracts, checked against real regulation — not a marketing page
A home warranty or vehicle service contract is not insurance. It's a contract, regulated state by state in the US and province by province in Canada, sold in an industry whose single most common complaint is a claim denied over fine print almost no one reads before signing. We check real providers against the actual licensing rules and disclosure requirements that apply, and report what we find honestly — no paid rankings, no pay-to-list badge.
What that means in practice
- No sponsored placements, ever
- Every finding checked against a regulator's own record, not a provider's claim
- A failing verdict never named — only a passing one
- No paid "verified provider" badge, at any price
Start here
All explainers →United States
How home warranties actually work
It's a service contract, not insurance — and whether it's regulated like one depends entirely on which state you're in.
Canada
How home warranties work in Canada
Ontario's Tarion and similar provincial programs are not the same thing as a purchased home-systems warranty — the two get confused constantly.
Auto
Extended warranty vs. manufacturer warranty
An "extended warranty" is legally a service contract, not a warranty at all — the FTC says so directly, and it changes who's actually on the hook.
Where we are right now
The Register →This site just launched. The standard is published and the Register is open, honestly, at zero providers assessed so far — see Updates for a dated record of everything that changes from here.
One email when the Register opens
A new state or provincial deep-dive, and a heads-up the day the first providers get assessed — this site is at zero right now, and that's the whole point of checking rather than assuming. No launch hype, no affiliate blasts, unsubscribe in one click.
Recently updated
All updates →September 15, 2026
3 new Canada Library pages: the Sale of Goods Act baseline, direct-sales cancellation rights, and Nova Scotia's express-warranty rule
Every common-law province gives a buyer a non-waivable Sale of Goods Act baseline — merchantable quality, fitness for purpose, matching description — that exists whether or not a home warranty or vehicle service contract is ever purchased on top of it; nine provinces separately give a ~10-day, no-reason cancellation right (up to a year if the seller wasn't licensed) on a warranty sold away from the seller's own store, with British Columbia rewriting its own version effective August 2026; and Nova Scotia, unlike Alberta, BC, or Saskatchewan, doesn't license a vehicle warranty seller as insurance — instead, its Consumer Protection Act can turn a dealer's own sales pitch about a vehicle into an enforceable express warranty.
September 15, 2026
4 new US Library pages: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and where the federal/state complaint backstops actually are
Pennsylvania and Michigan both exclude a service contract from their insurance code by statute rather than licensing it — leaving general unfair-and-deceptive-practices law, not an insurance department, as the real backstop. Two companion guides round it out: which office to actually complain to depends on how your state regulates this product, and Section 5 of the FTC Act (not Magnuson-Moss) is the federal law that actually polices deceptive warranty marketing, with real enforcement history to show for it.
September 15, 2026
The Register's third round: 3 US providers checked, 0 listed
Two home warranty providers and one vehicle service contract provider were checked against our published standard this round, back on the US side after the prior round's Canada-only assessments. None cleared every applicable point to the level of independent, primary-source verification we require before naming a provider publicly, so the passing list is still empty.