Last reviewed: 9 October 2026

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Maryland regulates a car's service contract and a home warranty under two completely different laws

Our Indiana page covers a state with detailed vehicle service contract law and, on that page, no home-warranty licensing regime. Maryland's split looks similar at first glance — real regulation on the vehicle side, something lighter for a home warranty — but the home side isn't the gap this page identifies in Indiana. It's a real, mandatory-disclosure statute; this page identifies no license, bond, or funded-reserve requirement behind it, and Maryland's own law carves home warranties out of the Insurance Article (other law may apply).

Correction (9 October 2026): this page previously said that a Maryland home warranty has "no license, bond, or funded-reserve requirement" and that no state registry, license or bond stands behind the promise. It now says only what this page identifies from the disclosure subtitle and its Commercial Law § 14-409 carve-out, and that other Maryland law may apply.

The vehicle side: register with the Insurance Administration, insure the contract, file it in advance

Maryland Code, Transportation §15-311.2, together with Insurance §2-112(a)(9) and (11), requires the "obligor" of a "mechanical repair contract" — Maryland's statutory name for what this Library calls a vehicle service contract — to register with the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA). Initial registration requires an application, a policy of insurance covering all of the obligor's obligations and liabilities under the contract, disclosure of any regulatory action taken against the obligor by another state, and a $25 non-refundable fee. Separately, the obligor must file the mechanical repair contract itself with MIA at least forty-five days before offering it for sale in Maryland, and must maintain what the statute calls "adequate insurance reserves" for each contract — a requirement the statute itself says is satisfied by that same insurance policy. This framework took effect October 1, 2015, under Chapter 444 of the Acts of 2015.

The home and consumer-product side: a carve-out from the Insurance Article

A home warranty, or a service contract on any other consumer product, falls instead under Maryland Code, Commercial Law, Title 14, Subtitle 4 — the Maryland Service Contracts and Consumer Products Guaranty Act — which reaches a contract covering personal, family, or household goods or services costing $10 or more, including repair or installation work on a home's electrical, heating, plumbing, or mechanical systems. It requires the contract to be in writing and to disclose five specific things: the guaranty period's duration, any maintenance required to keep it in force, the guarantor's actual obligations during that period, the procedure for obtaining repair or replacement, and any informal dispute-settlement mechanism the guarantor offers. Section 14-409 of that same subtitle states in § 14-409(b)(1) that a provider complying with this subtitle need not comply with any provision of the Insurance Article, and the statute carries mechanical repair contracts back into the Insurance Article by reference to Transportation § 15-311.2. Maryland's own statute, in other words, draws this exact line itself: a home warranty from a provider that complies with the subtitle is carved out of the Insurance Article's requirements, while a vehicle mechanical repair contract is expressly carried back into it.

Why this isn't the same story as a state where we identify no home-warranty law

This is a meaningfully different pattern from a state like Indiana, for which this Library identifies no dedicated statute reaching a home warranty, leaving general deceptive-sales law after something goes wrong. Maryland's Title 14 Subtitle 4 is a real, standing, mandatory-disclosure statute that applies from the moment a Maryland home warranty is sold, and it gives a consumer a private right to enforce those specific disclosure obligations. This page identifies no license, registration, bond, or funded-reserve requirement for a home warranty in that subtitle, in contrast to the vehicle-side requirements for a mechanical repair contract; its §14-409 carve-out keeps the Insurance Article from applying, and other Maryland law may still apply.

What this means for a Maryland buyer

For a vehicle mechanical repair contract, you can ask whether the obligor is actually registered with MIA and confirm the insurance policy backing it — a real, checkable fact under state law. For a home warranty, this page identifies no such registry to check: state law entitles you to the five specific written disclosures above, but this page identifies no state registry, license, or bond for you to verify independently. That makes point 4 of our standard — verifying the funded-claims mechanism directly, not from marketing — even more important to ask about yourself in Maryland than in a state where the law already requires an answer.