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Has anyone purchased Freedom can comment? Cheaper than Fidelity but a cap of $20k total payout. Porsche dealers accept this?
Let's try to keep this thread just dedicated to Fidelity questions/concerns but yes, Porsche dealerships accept payment for repairs by Freedom just as they do Fidelity, paid with-in 24 hours of a claim approval.
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Invoice attached. They said they submitted the part number to fidelity and it was not covered. Nothing they could do on their end. It’s all based off the part numbers, not a description of the item or how it functions in the car. I’ll give Fidelity a call and get more details later.
Also, damn shame that my sticky passenger side COV valve that controls heat ALWAYS seems to start working again when I bring it to the dealer.
I am continuing to go through this thread to see what people's experience with Fidelity has been. An overwhelming number of posts in this thread have to do with the sale rather than the claim process. On the sale side, it sounds like all the brokers who have been mentioned in this thread are professional and responsive, which is what I'd expect.
What really matters, however, is how the company handles claims. In addition to the post above that I've quoted, where Fidelity appears to have denied coverage under its Platinum policy for a wiring harness, which is something that Fidelity's own policy terms suggest should've been covered, there's also the above post where Fidelity has refused to pay for a sport chrono clock. I do not see any exclusion in Fidelity's policy that supports Fidelity's denial.
Given the two issues above, I now have very serious concerns about Fidelity's willingness to stand behind its coverage.
@SnakeEyesB There were a lot of steps the person with the sport chono could have taken to follow up with Fidelity. The easiest and most common is getting your retailer involved. I had a customer on Thursday of last week saying Fidelity was not paying to replace their broken wheel, after paying to replace the tire... turns out Fidelity was waiting on the dealership to submit a photo of the broken wheel. Fidelity paid for the wheel to be replaced the same day after reviewing the additional requested information.
Unfortunately I do not know the full story of the incident above... but I wouldn't have any concern of Fidelity standing behind their coverage.
@SnakeEyesB There were a lot of steps the person with the sport chono could have taken to follow up with Fidelity. The easiest and most common is getting your retailer involved. I had a customer on Thursday of last week saying Fidelity was not paying to replace their broken wheel, after paying to replace the tire... turns out Fidelity was waiting on the dealership to submit a photo of the broken wheel. Fidelity paid for the wheel to be replaced the same day after reviewing the additional request information.
The image above contains the poster's repair invoice, which shows that the repair place (which appears to be a Porsche service department) did contact Fidelity, which stated that a sport chrono clock is "not a covered component." That, of course, appears to contradict the explicit terms of Fidelity's own policy, which does not have "covered components." Fidelity's Platinum policy is an exclusionary policy, which means that the repair is covered, unless an exclusion applies. No exclusion appears to apply in this instance.
This thread also contains a number of posts by others who expressed surprise and dismay over Fidelity's conduct, as Fidelity's denial does not appear to be supported by the terms of its own contract.
Unfortunately I do not know the full story of the incident above... but I wouldn't have any concern of Fidelity standing behind their coverage.
Very respectfully, I have now quoted two documented instances of Fidelity failing to pay for things that appear to be covered by the terms of its own policy. So, while I appreciate the fact that you, a broker who sells Fidelity policies (among others), don't have any concerns, I find the above denials to be incredibly concerning.
@SnakeEyesB The service center is not the same person as the retailer. The retailer is who sold him the policy, but again, we do not have all the facts.
Fidelity averages over $500 million dollars in claims paid a year.
@SnakeEyesB The service center is not the same person as the retailer. The retailer is who sold him the policy, but again, we do not have all the facts.
Once again, we have two documented instances (and one of them contains a copy of the service department's explanation/documentation) of Fidelity failing to cover repairs that appear to be covered by Fidelity's own policy. The fact that the customers could've exercised various remedies against Fidelity is a separate conversation.
One of the big advantages of solid extended warranties is the fact that they eliminate the hassle and the uncertainty associated with potential repairs. If, however, the company behind the extended warranty cannot be relied upon to pay for the repairs covered under its policy without a fight (or at all), I am sure you can appreciate the fact that people's interest in such polices goes way down.
Fidelity averages over $500 million dollars in claims paid a year.
Again, respectfully, this is a completely meaningless statement. All insurance companies do pay out quite a bit in claims. The question is how difficult do they make the process, and do they engage in certain tactics where they deny the initial round of certain legitimate claims and make you waste time fighting them along the way.
Last edited by SnakeEyesB; 04-18-2023 at 08:52 AM.
I'll include my experience so far. I purchased a 4yr/48K Platinum warranty with a deductible last year for my 991.1.
Under warranty I've had the following jobs done at the local Porsche dealership:
Coil Pack replacement - Only paid deductible,
Rear Spoiler assembly - Deductible plus $300 because the fidelity labor book did not align with Porsche. The total job was $3600.
Front axle rebuild and alignment - The dealer comp'd my deductible because I found the issue myself literally a few days after it was in for the spoiler job. Total bill was $2300 and I would have owed just the deductible.
Hood latch stuck - this was my fault when I changed the oil I didn't reconnect the latch properly and apparently it broke. The part was only $100 bucks, but getting into the engine to replace it was time consuming so my service advisor said the warranty would have only covered the part ($100) and .5 hours. I used my PCA discount and It came out to $1100.
Replace one COV for cabin heater - deductible only
PCM Replacement - deductible only. Current cost of a PCM 3.1 is $5K minus the core return reimbursement.
The biggest issue I have is that it is hard to tell if Fidelity will cover all the labor hours. My sense is that for standard or even bigger jobs it is fine. But odd repairs like the hood and spoiler, they underestimate. So far I have had one flat denial. That was for my accessory belt pulley. I understand the logic for the belt, but the pulley less so.
I think a lot of this depends on your service advisor. They are trying to maximize their book too so it is in their interest to get as much covered as possible. My SA was pretty frustrated that Fidelity would not cover for an entire axle replacement instead of just rebuilding. Apparently that would have been much fewer labor hours so probably entirely covered but the parts are more and Fidelity requires asking if it can be rebuilt/repaired before replacing. At this point I've handed my SA $8K in claims work. We have an understanding if anything major comes they get the job.
Overall I am ahead on my warranty and fairly pleased. When I got my 991 I was a little concerned about the provenance so I wanted added security since I plan on keeping this car at least 4 years. In another thread someone claimed only 15-20% make good on the initial warranty cost. For me it was a good/lucky bet.
I'll include my experience so far. I purchased a 4yr/48K Platinum warranty with a deductible last year for my 991.1.
Under warranty I've had the following jobs done at the local Porsche dealership:
Coil Pack replacement - Only paid deductible,
Rear Spoiler assembly - Deductible plus $300 because the fidelity labor book did not align with Porsche. The total job was $3600.
Front axle rebuild and alignment - The dealer comp'd my deductible because I found the issue myself literally a few days after it was in for the spoiler job. Total bill was $2300 and I would have owed just the deductible.
Hood latch stuck - this was my fault when I changed the oil I didn't reconnect the latch properly and apparently it broke. The part was only $100 bucks, but getting into the engine to replace it was time consuming so my service advisor said the warranty would have only covered the part ($100) and .5 hours. I used my PCA discount and It came out to $1100.
Replace one COV for cabin heater - deductible only
PCM Replacement - deductible only. Current cost of a PCM 3.1 is $5K minus the core return reimbursement.
The biggest issue I have is that it is hard to tell if Fidelity will cover all the labor hours. My sense is that for standard or even bigger jobs it is fine. But odd repairs like the hood and spoiler, they underestimate. So far I have had one flat denial. That was for my accessory belt pulley. I understand the logic for the belt, but the pulley less so.
I think a lot of this depends on your service advisor. They are trying to maximize their book too so it is in their interest to get as much covered as possible. My SA was pretty frustrated that Fidelity would not cover for an entire axle replacement instead of just rebuilding. Apparently that would have been much fewer labor hours so probably entirely covered but the parts are more and Fidelity requires asking if it can be rebuilt/repaired before replacing. At this point I've handed my SA $8K in claims work. We have an understanding if anything major comes they get the job.
Overall I am ahead on my warranty and fairly pleased. When I got my 991 I was a little concerned about the provenance so I wanted added security since I plan on keeping this car at least 4 years. In another thread someone claimed only 15-20% make good on the initial warranty cost. For me it was a good/lucky bet.
Out of curiosity, when did you replace the rear spoiler mechanism? I did mine a few months ago (different warranty company but covered 100%) and the part alone was $4000 and the Porsche dealer charged 6.5 hours of labor to replace it. 3600 sounds real cheap?
I'm up to $13.5k in warranty claims so far in the first 6 months so I'm very glad I bought a warranty.
Rear Spoiler assembly - Deductible plus $300 because the fidelity labor book did not align with Porsche. The total job was $3600.
This is very helpful. Are you saying that the labor rate that Fidelity approved was lower than the service department's labor rate, so you had to pay the difference?
Hood latch stuck - this was my fault when I changed the oil I didn't reconnect the latch properly and apparently it broke. The part was only $100 bucks, but getting into the engine to replace it was time consuming so my service advisor said the warranty would have only covered the part ($100) and .5 hours. I used my PCA discount and It came out to $1100.
That's a very significant difference in the labor hours that Fidelity was willing to approve and the labor hours that the service department ended up charging for.
The biggest issue I have is that it is hard to tell if Fidelity will cover all the labor hours. My sense is that for standard or even bigger jobs it is fine. But odd repairs like the hood and spoiler, they underestimate.
Thank you, this is very helpful.
So far I have had one flat denial. That was for my accessory belt pulley. I understand the logic for the belt, but the pulley less so.
I do not understand the rationale behind either denial. The belt pulley appears to be outside the scope of any of the exclusions, so it should've been covered. The policy then says "RELATED DAMAGE COVERAGE: WE will pay for the replacement of brake pads, belts and hoses that are damaged and require replacement as a direct result of a MECHANICAL BREAKDOWN." So, if the pulley repair was covered, the belt should've been covered as well.
I suppose that Fidelity's argument might've been that the belt snapped first, which then damaged the pulley. Even if that's what happened and that's the service department's conclusion, the pulley should've been covered.
I think a lot of this depends on your service advisor. They are trying to maximize their book too so it is in their interest to get as much covered as possible. My SA was pretty frustrated that Fidelity would not cover for an entire axle replacement instead of just rebuilding. Apparently that would have been much fewer labor hours so probably entirely covered but the parts are more and Fidelity requires asking if it can be rebuilt/repaired before replacing. At this point I've handed my SA $8K in claims work. We have an understanding if anything major comes they get the job.
Yikes. The language of Fidelity's exclusionary policy should be all that matters. Once we start to get into all these issues where Fidelity only pays for a certain number of hours that the service department says would be insufficient to perform the repairs, or comes out with outright denials for things that should be covered under the policy, or is only willing to pay for rebuilding something instead of replacing it, we are up the creek without a paddle.
Being ahead on the warranty cost is fine and dandy (and I am sure that this is an uncommon scenario, as they'd otherwise be out of business), but I have very little interest in paying the policy premiums and then wasting a bunch of time fighting Fidelity to actually resolve all these issues under the policy.
Last edited by SnakeEyesB; 04-17-2023 at 07:38 PM.
Out of curiosity, when did you replace the rear spoiler mechanism? I did mine a few months ago (different warranty company but covered 100%) and the part alone was $4000 and the Porsche dealer charged 6.5 hours of labor to replace it. 3600 sounds real cheap?
This was July 2022. The parts listed in the repair were:
So comparing prices then to now, the drive unit got more expensive by $1K
Originally Posted by SnakeEyesB
This is very helpful. Are you saying that the labor rate that Fidelity approved was lower than the service department's labor rate, so you had to pay the difference?
The issue is not the labor rate (i.e. $300 / hour) it is the number of hours that Fidelity believes a job should take for completion. The engine hood latch is a good example. In theory, replacing just the engine hood latch cable is a very quick fix. If the hood is already open. But it wasn't so the dealer needed to take off the spoiler and rear bumper to have room in order to access it. Fidelity didn't feel that counted.
Last edited by TimYH; 04-17-2023 at 07:46 PM.
Reason: Add response
Page 2, "not to exceed the labor time listed in a nationally recognized parts and labor guide"
Right, this is a very common issue for home warranty companies, which are notorious for these exact types of tactics where they either deny something outright and make you fight them, or say they'll cover the issue but provide a low reimbursement that the service provider refuses to accept. So, the customer is left being forced to fight for coverage and/or ends up paying the difference.
Unfortunately, from the descriptions above, it sounds like Fidelity uses similar tactics.
Last edited by SnakeEyesB; 04-17-2023 at 08:07 PM.
Out of curiosity, when did you replace the rear spoiler mechanism? I did mine a few months ago (different warranty company but covered 100%) and the part alone was $4000 and the Porsche dealer charged 6.5 hours of labor to replace it. 3600 sounds real cheap?
I'm up to $13.5k in warranty claims so far in the first 6 months so I'm very glad I bought a warranty.
May I ask which extended warranty company you have? I was leaning towards Fidelity but now not so sure!
04-17-2023, 03:40 PM
